BP and its partner Kosmos Energy are on track to take the final investment decision for the West African Tortue LNG project by the end of 2018, BP CFO Brian Gilvary said Tuesday.
The project — based on an estimated 15 Tcf (425 Bcm) of gas in an area straddling the Mauritania/Senegal maritime border — is expected to produce its first gas in 2022.
New FIDs in the global LNG supply industry have been few and far between in recent years due to relatively low LNG prices and the slew of new projects starting up, but more investment decisions are expected as the LNG market looks likely to tighten from around 2021.
“The project entered the FEED [phase] in April 2018, and we are still targeting FID at the end of 2018 and first gas in 2022,” Gilvary said during a conference call with analysts after the release of the company’s third-quarter results.
In February, BP and US-based Kosmos moved a step closer to FID on Tortue LNG after the governments of Mauritania and Senegal signed an intergovernmental deal on the development.
Gilvary said that in the first phase, Tortue LNG would have a capacity of 2.5 million mt/year before moving to peak production of 10 million mt/year.
LNG FIDS
Tortue LNG would add to the existing LNG export facilities in West Africa that include the six-train Nigeria LNG, Angola LNG and Equatorial Guinea LNG.
A new floating LNG plant off Equatorial Guinea — the Ophir Energy-operated Fortuna LNG project — has, however, stalled with time running out for the UK-based operator to reach FID before the company’s license expires at the end of the year.
But more FIDs are expected globally after Shell and its partners earlier this month took FID on the two-train, 14 million mt/year LNG Canada project.
FIDs in 2019 could include the addition of four new mega LNG trains in Qatar, the Novatek-operated Arctic LNG 2 in Russia, the Anadarko-operated Mozambique LNG project and a handful of plants in the US.
Shell’s head of integrated gas Maarten Wetselaar said last month that the global LNG market would tighten from late 2021 after a possible “soft” period from next summer.
In its latest LNG outlook published in February, Shell said the world risked an LNG supply crunch by the mid-2020s due to the collapse in LNG-sector investment since the 2014 oil-price slump.