Floating African LNG Venture.

Upstream on March 16, 2007, reported that African LNG (AfLNG) of the UK had been set up for a 1m t/y FLNG export plant in a shallow-water part of Nigeria. It said AfLNG had commissioned London-based Energy & Power Consultants (EPC) to look at ways of commercialising flared gas on a few potential sites. It said EPC had come up with a novel solution to involve a vessel recovering LPG from flared gas which would then be "cleaned up" on an existing oil production platform before being transferred to a "fairly simple liquefaction process" on a barge. The project was then estimated to cost $700m.

AfLNG was then 20% owned by London-listed Gasol, which had an option to buy the remaining 80% of the company. Gasol had a strategic alliance with Afren, an AIM-listed E&P company. Afren had 6.5% in Gasol. Afren was controlled by African Gas Development Corp (Afgas). EPC's proposed project was to take less then four years to be on stream (see gmt7NigrGasExpAug13-07).

Gasol and Teekay in early 2009 signed an MoU centred on development of a "unique liquefaction process". Gasol, with the assistance of Teekay Corp, had developed the concept of a Near-Shore LNG Production System (NSPS) with a view to applying this in Nigeria and elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. The NSPS is based on using floating modules on barges berthed and moored to a fixed and protected jetty. It is designed to be used in benign waters (as found in the Gulf of Guinea) close to the shore to produce LNG, LPG, condensates and power.

The Wood Group-owned Nitrogen Dual Expander (NDX-1) design uses a proprietary nitrogen refrigeration process. The NDX-1 design will have production scalability for this project of 2-6m t/y of LNG. The company then said that, while further detailed evaluation and feasibility of the NSPS had to be conducted, the NSPS's total CAPEX/OPEX estimates for the facility were competitive on a cost per ton of LNG production capacity as compared to other industry projects. The parties were to jointly decide the timing to do front-end engineering and designs (FEED), applied on identified gas reserves in the region. The project's lead time from FEED's start to first delivery of LNG cargoes is 3.5 to 4 years and is therefore an economic alternative to both onshore traditional LNG plants and FLNG plants. Gasol was in negotiations with various gas reserve owners and LNG partners/offtakers regarding the application of NSPS to emerging projects. In case NSPS did not suit the development of a particular project, alternate FLNG solutions would be considered.

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