Offshore staff
LONDON – Equatorial Guinea’s government plans to construct a natural gas megahub, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima announced yesterday at the Africa Oil and Power conference in London.
The project, led by the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons in collaboration with oil and gas companies active in the area, will involve an interlinking of production, gathering and processing facilities offshore and onshore, and will tie in to existing facilities.
Under the first phase Noble Energy, operator of the Aseng and Alen fields in offshore Block I/O, will supply gas to the Punta Europa gas complex, which includes the Malabo power station, the AMPCO methanol plant, and the Equatorial Guinea LNG complex.
This agreement, combined with new subsea pipelines linking Aseng, Alen and the Marathon-operated Alba field, will replace some of the gas production lost as Alba declines.
One of the goals is that future discoveries will be developed as tie-ins to the megahub, rather than as standalone upstream developments. The new megahub will also connect to other existing and future gas projects and maximize the gas infrastructure of Equatorial Guinea and potentially also of neighbor states.
This should limit dependency on single upstream developments for industrial development, and allow gas to be directed to where the value is greatest, the Ministry claims.
The project should lead to creation of 2-3,000 direct and indirect jobs in Equatorial Guinea, with the state potentially receiving over $2 billion in revenues.
Minister Mbaga Obiang Lima said: “Equatorial Guinea is developing the leading natural gas economy in sub-Saharan Africa and leading the region in proving new technologies and concepts. This gas megahub project is totally unique in Africa and it requires an unprecedented level of cooperation between government and energy companies.”
5/11/2018
