Shell lifts force majeure on gas for Nigeria LNG

Shell has lifted a force majeure on gas supplies to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant. The company declared force majeure on May 16 after a leak along the Eastern Gas Gathering System near Awoba in Rivers State. It affected 1.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day. That declaration came just less than a month after it had lifted a force majeure on supplies to the plant, during a time in which Shell was reporting growing attacks on pipelines by oil thieves.

NNPC Unveils $16bn Gas Infrastructure Programme

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said preliminary works on the gas infrastructure development project which is expected to attract about $16 billion worth of investment to the proposed Ogidingbe gas-based industrial park will commence next month.

According to the Group Executive Director, Gas and Power of the NNPC, Dr. David Ige, who provided a timeline of activities for the project at the recently concluded Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston-Texas, United States, work is envisaged to commence on the Ogidingbe Free Trade Zone (FTZ) with the full infrastructure development and Pre-Front End Engineering Design (FEED) of the Central Processing Facilities (CPFs) in June this year.

Ige in a statement from the acting General Manager Public Affairs of NNPC, Tumini Green, explained that the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the CPFs was however expected to be achieved in June 2014.

He noted that by January 2015, construction work on the CPFs would begin while work on the real estate development of the Ogidingbe area which will service the industrial park would begin in March 2015 and erection works at the petrochemical complex was also slated to commence between 2016 and 2017.

Centrica, Qatar to buy over $900 of gas assets in Canada

Britain's Centrica Plc and Qatar Petroleum International said they will buy Suncor Energy Inc's conventional natural-gas business in Western Canada for $986.73 million - their first acquisition since they decided in 2011 to hunt jointly for international energy assets.
Centrica, Britain's biggest energy supplier and its partner, the international arm of the world's largest liquefied-natural gas exporter, will take control of Suncor gas assets in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan that produce 250 million cubic feet per day from reserves pegged at 978 billion cubic feet. When combined with its other Canadian gas properties, the acquisition will give Centrica 60 percent of the gas needed for its Direct Energy unit, which delivers energy to six million customers in Canada and the United States, while Qatar gets its first exposure to the Canadian natural gas industry.

FG to Spend $400m on Trans-Africa Gas Pipeline Project

The Acting Director General, Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Mr. Ghaji Bello has stated that the Federal Government would commit $400 million into the Trans-Africa Gas Pipeline project. He said the project which would run from Nigeria to Algeria, is expected to be completed in 2018,

Bello made the disclosure in Abuja at a two- day Technical Workshop on Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative (PICI) organised by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, (NEPAD) with the theme: “PICI: A Panacea for Sustainable Growth and Development in Africa.’

The project, according to Bello, runs through several African countries and is expected to boost the economic activities of the areas and increase intra-Africa regional trade.

U.S. to become World's biggest oil producer by 2017

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast that the U.S. will become the world's biggest oil producer and gas producer in the coming years. The energy agency said the U.S. will become the biggest oil producer in the world by 2017, bumping Saudi Arabia from the top spot. The agency had formerly predicted Saudi Arabia would hold the title until 2035.

The IEA noted high world prices and new technologies in the U.S. oil and gas production industries are driving the rebound in oil and gas production. It forecast U.S. oil production will rise to 10 million barrels per day by 2015 and 11.1 million bpd in 2020.

The IEA also predicted that the U.S. will overtake Russia as the largest gas producer by 2015.

Power generation drops as five power plants shuts down

Five power plants have been shut due to gas shortage and technical hitches. The plants are in Sapele, Geregu, Omoku, Alaoji and Trans Amadi, Port Harcourt. The closure of the plants had made power generation to drop by at least 400 Megawatts.

The daily operational report of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria showed that the three units of the Sapele power plant were out due to condensate problem, while one unit is still in the pre-commissioning stage. For the Geregu power plant, all the three units were shut due to some technical problems. The shut-down of Omoku, it was learnt, was caused by collapsed towers on the Omoku/Port Harcourt 132kV line. The units in the River State Independent Power Plant at Trans Amadi, it was gathered, were shut down due to faults.

There had been fears that some of the National Integrated Power Projects recently completed by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited might not have gas to generate electricity. This is in spite of promises by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation would increase gas supply to the power plants in the country between August and September under the gas emergency plan this year.