Mauritania and Senegal have disposed of both political and infrastructural resources to develop their new discoveries of gas reserves as Nigeria, Africa’s largest proven gas reserves holder struggles with a burden of infrastructure inefficiencies.
For Nigeria, infrastructure challenges have slowed down the development of its 185 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas reserve. The plans to build the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Train 7 have remained on the drawing board for over eight years.
Though partners in the NLNG said they hope to take a final investment decision (FID) on building the much awaited 7th train by the fourth quarter of this year, the entrance of Mauritania, Senegal and Cameroon into the NLNG space should be a wakeup call.
In February, 2018, Mauritania and Senegal signed an inter-governmental cooperation agreement, which improves the chances that British Petroleum (BP) and Texas-based Kosmos Energy will make a positive final investment decision (FID) on the Greater Tortue project in the coming months.
Kosmos in 2015 made significant discoveries in Mauritania and Senegal, the largest of which was the Tortue field, around 15 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in high quality reservoirs. And there is more to come, with four exploration wells drilling in 2017.
“For Kosmos, it was time to ask: ‘Do we keep doing what we are doing, stick to our knitting as a great explorer, or do we try and branch out and do the development ourselves?’ And they went down the road of, ‘Let’s find a really good partner to do the development’, which is where BP comes in, Emma Delaney, regional president Mauritania and Senegal said in an interview with BP Magazine.
The final investment decision (FID) for the Tortue development offshore Mauritania and Senegal, will include a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) production unit, by the end of 2018. This would be the second FLNG facility in Africa.
The first in the world was Malaysia, which was launched in 2016 and first in Africa was Cameroun’s $1.2 billion FLNG project, which shipped its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo in May 2018.
Some experts have suggested a number of solutions to deal with this gas transportation challenge. For instance, one solution is to find alternative transport systems in addition to existing pipeline networks.
“We can take the gas offshore and bring it onshore, regasification makes this possible. If you can take gas from wherever it is, freeze and reconvert wherever it is needed, then we would have solved most of these problems” Ebi Omatsola, an international petroleum explorationist said at an event in Lagos, recently.
“Europe has about 35 regasification terminals. In terms of population, Europe is 192 million people, Nigeria is 195, yet we have none. So, we need build clusters, this involves huge capital expenditure. In this context, shuttle tankers come in handy. This requires a regasification plant onshore. Every city with more than one million people should have a power plant, according the International Energy Agency’s guidelines” Omotsola said.
The regasification terminals can run on the plans to develop port infrastructure in Badagry, the free trade none in Lekki and Olokola export processing zone (EPZ) in Ondo state and these points can serve as terminals” the former chief geologist for Shell Plc said.
The biggest single change in developing Nigeria’s gas market in a hub for West Africa’s energy has been infrastructure as some recent events have shown.
September 2017, Ghana, signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom for gas supply, again because the pipeline infrastructure for the West African sub-region is inefficiently run.
“The gas that will come from Russia to Ghana’s regasification plant will cost $12 per standard cubic feet (Scf). I can put gas at $3 per Scf into the West African Gas Pipeline if it were efficiently managed and with an extra cost of $2 per Scf for transportation cost I can deliver gas to Ghana at $5 per Scf less than half of what the Russian gas will cost” Austin Avuru, CEO of Seplat, a Nigerian oil and gas exploration and production company said.
In February 2000, an inter-Governmental Agreement was signed. The West Africa gas pipeline will transport natural gas from the Lagos terminal (Nigeria) to three delivery points near Cotonou (Benin), Lome (Togo) and Tema (Ghana) over a distance of 681km.
The West Africa Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAGPCo) was set up to build, own and operate the pipeline. The company was established by the government of the four countries as a public-private-partnership and is owned by ChevronTexaco West Africa Gas Pipeline Ltd (36.7 percent), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (25 percent), Royal Dutch Shell (18 percent), Volta River Authority of Ghana (16.3 percent), Societe Togolaise de Gaz (2 percent), and Societe Beninoise de Gaz (2 percent).
