非洲石油之王需要120亿美元投资到LNG设施

Africa Oil Giant Needs $12Billion to Avoid Missing LNG Boat

By

Paul Wallace

,

Paul Burkhardt

, and

Elisha Bala-Gbogbo

June 6, 2018, 6:01 PM EDTUpdated onJune 7, 2018, 8:51 AM EDT

·NLNG wants to boost Bonny Island terminalcapacity by 40%

·Shell, Total and Eni together own majoritystake in venture

Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

On a tropicalisland just off the coast of Nigeria, hundreds of engineers work around theclock to produce liquefied natural gas at a plant the size of Lower Manhattan.

Operator Nigeria LNG Ltd. says it will decidelater this year whether to invest more than $10 billion to boost capacity by 40percent. That would allow the Bonny Island terminal -- an hour’s ferry ridefrom the oil hub of Port Harcourt -- to export as much as 66 million cubicmeters (30 million tons) a year to markets in Europe and Asia.

Nigeria is the largest LNG producer in theregion and wants to get bigger

NLNG’s shareholders -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc,Total SA, Eni SpA and state-controlled Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. --must weigh the benefits of expanding their profitable venture against thethreat of higher taxes,pipeline vandalismin the Niger River delta andvolatile gas prices. Those concerns have already delayed the project firstmooted in 2012. Any further interruptions will increase the risk that Africa’sbiggest oil producer misses the global transition to cleaner fuels and a chanceto reduce itsstutteringeconomy’s reliance on crude.

“Nigeria needs to take the opportunity,” saidMaggie Kuang, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Singapore. “Thenext few years are critical for investment decisions. If Nigeria does not takeany action, it will fall behind.”

Last year, the West African nation shipped 46million cubic meters of LNG -- almost all from Bonny Island -- making it theworld’sfourth-biggest exporterbehind Qatar, Australia and Malaysia,according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It also faces competition from theU.S., Russia and Mozambique, which are spending billions of dollars to start orramp up production.

Governments and energy traders aresigninglong-term contracts to guarantee supplyfor decades, with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. predicting that LNG demandwill double to about 1.28 billion cubic meters by 2030.

Boosting capacity at Bonny Island willrequire investment of about $12 billion, according to New York-based TeneoIntelligence. That will fund the construction of two processing units. Theterminal currently has six units, known as trains, in which gas is compressedand cooled to 258 degrees below Fahrenheit (minus 161 Celsius), before beingpiped as LNG onto ships at nearby jetties.

Biggest Reserves

French oil giant Total declined to comment,while Italy’s Eni and Nigeria’s NNPC didn’t respond to requests for comment. AShell spokesman referred queries to NLNG.

Nigeria has no shortage of gas. Its almost5.7 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves are the biggest in Africa, butsupply to NLNG can be erratic.

Flows were reduced by 10 percent at one pointlast year amid shutdowns at oil and gas fields in the Delta region as thievestapped into pipelines. Shellsaidthis week that attacks, ranging from piracyand theft to vandalism and kidnapping, continue to put a brake on output.

Guaranteeing enough throughput for the new,larger trains at Bonny Island will require investment from gas producers toincrease supply and improve security, according to NLNG.

Tax Threat

There are also fiscal concerns, with someNigerian politicians wanting toremovetax breaks enjoyed by the venture.President Muhammadu Buhari’s government is against such a move, which NLNG sayswould kill off its expansion plans.

Should that threat be averted, the businesscase for the LNG project is good, according to Gail Anderson, research directorfor sub-Saharan Africa upstream oil and gas at Wood Mackenzie in Edinburgh.

“The economics of NLNG have always beenpretty robust,” she said. “It has been a tremendously successful project thataccounts for a large chunk of the international oil companies’ value inNigeria.”

Nigeria’s 49 percent stake has provedlucrative, earning the government $16 billion of dividends from 2004 to 2016,according to statements on NLNG’s website. Buhari used those payouts to bailout several states in 2015, after the oil-price crash battered the economy, andthis month Nigeriatransferred$650 million of NLNG proceeds to itssovereign wealth fund for infrastructure development.

Best Bet

Crucially, the oil majors have retained acontrolling stake, said Malte Liewerscheidt, a West Africa analyst at Teneo.

“That has allowed the company to operatesuccessfully thanks to limited political interference,” he said. “NLNG iswidely regarded as the most efficiently run company with major governmentinvolvement, much unlike the entirelystate-owned NNPC.”

To maintain that position and Nigeria’s cloutamong global energy giants, the new trains must be built, NLNG ManagingDirector Tony AttahsaidinFebruary. The cleaner fossil fuel offers a better long-term option than crude,he said.

“Nigeria has to begin to think about therelevance of oil in the future,” Attah said. “The energy mix is fast-changingand Nigeria has to come to terms with that. The best bet is for gas.”

(Updates fifth paragraph with shipments fromBonny Island.)