Success Nwogu 
Two Chinese companies, Chinese Shipyards Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry and China Merchants Heavy Industry (CMHI) are vying to provide a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) vessel for deployment offshore Nigeria, Upstream yesterday reported.
Industry sources said the facility is estimated to be about $5 billion and would process gas that is currently flared for domestic use and possible export. The FLNG vessel will tap gas reserves from the Yoho field in oil mining lease 104. ExxonMobil operates with a 40 per cent stake, in partnership with Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) holding a 60 per cent non-operating interest.
Upstream added that a consortium of the United Kingdom’s KBR, Japan Gas Corporation (JGC), and France’s Technip Energies was providing engineering for the FLNG project. Sources said the planned FLNG vessel would produce 176 MMcf/d of gas from the offshore Yoho Field.
They said the facility would comprise a turret mooring system, gas pre- treatment modules, LNG production modules, living quarters, and power generation and utilities alongside storage and offloading. At peak, the facility is targeted to produce 1.7 MMt/ year of LNG and 300,000 metric tons of LPG, all for Nigeria’s domestic market.
The facility is one of the strategies to reduce gas flare and optimise Nigeria’s abundant gas resources. It is also in line with “The Decade of Gas,” which Nigeria launched in 2021 as a roadmap for gas development. It could be recalled that the Federal Government had been making spirited efforts to fully develop and tap the nation’s estimated 203 Tcf of existing proved gas deposits and unlocking up to 600 Tcf in unproven gas resources.
