Nigeria LNG Ltd.'s $3.8 billion, 5.9 million metric ton/year liquefied natural gas plant at Bonny, Rivers state, has started production and will load its first LNG shipment the first week in October.
The engineering consortium handling construction of the plant, TSKJ-comprising Technip SA of France, Snamprogetti SpA of Italy, Kellogg Brown & Root of the U.S., and JGC Corp. of Japan-handed it over to NLNG management after weeks of operations checks.
The first LNG shipment will go to Gaz de France's Montoire terminal. It will be transported in the LNG Lagos, a 122,000 dwt vessel that NLNG official Andrew Odeh said the firm was scheduled to take delivery of on Sept. 24.
LNG exports from the plant will be transported in four carriers. NLNG has changed the names of three of its existing vessels to be used for this purpose: the Lake Charles to LNG Edo, the Louisiana to LNG Abuja, and the Southern to LNG Delta.
NLNG has sales contracts with Italy's ENEL for 3.5 billion cu m/year (bcm/y) of gas, Spain's Enagas SA for 1.6 bcm/y, Turkey's Botas for 1.2 bcm/y, and Gaz de France for 500 million cu m/year.
Shell Petroleum Development Co. is expected to supply 53.33% of the plant's feed gas requirement of 26.6 million cu m/stream day, while Elf Aquitaine SA and Nigeria Agip Oil Co. will account for 23.33% each. To date, however, only Shell and Agip are providing feed gas. It was not clear at presstime why Elf had not met the July 2, 1999, deadline for gas supply.
Ownership in NLNG is: Nigeria National Petroleum Corp., 49%; Shell Gas BV, 25.6%; Elf, 15%; and Agip, 10.4%. The project was launched in 1989 to make use of Nigeria's natural gas production, much of which is flared.
Expansion to a third train is expected to increase the LNG capacity of the Bonny plant to 8.7 million tons/year (OGJ, Mar. 22, 1999, p. 45). Nigeria expects to collect revenues of $1 billion/year from the initial two trains over the 22.5-year term of the sales and delivery agreements between NLNG and its buyers.
