Hawilti launches gas research programme on Nigeria


Hawilti has marked the launch of its gas research programme on Nigeria with the release of a comprehensive investment report on the country’s natural gas sector earlier this week.

The 2022-2023 programme seeks to analyse the growth of Nigeria’s natural gas value-chain in light of current regional and global market dynamics. While the Nigerian government had already been pushing for a stronger adoption of gas domestically, the war in Ukraine has repositioned Nigeria as a strong potential gas supplier for the export market as well.

Long-stalled projects such as Brass LNG or the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) could benefit from renewed interest in exporting African gas. Meanwhile, the need to secure energy for Nigerian households and industries, especially in a context of soaring diesel prices, is putting pressure on the country’s gas value-chain to provide alternative solutions such as compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and piped natural gas (PNG).  

To address those challenges, Nigeria has chosen gas as its key transition fuel and named the 2020-2030 period as “Decade of Gas” in a bid to monetize its 206 Tcf of gas reserves to drive industrialization, create jobs, and generate revenue.

This is in turn generating increased interests from local and foreign investors seeking to invest in the country. While little confidence exists in the strength of Nigeria’s domestic gas value-chain, long-term industry fundamentals support a strong case for investing into the country’s gas production and infrastructure.

Hawilti’s research programme is developing new data sets and perspectives into the Nigerian market, focusing on private sector-led initiatives and projects across the exploration & production and midstream segments, while highlighting the growth potential of key commodities such as LPG, LNG, and CNG.

All market information generated as part of the programme is now available on the Hawilti+ research programme and to Hawilti subscribers and partners. In addition, Hawilti will be expanding its suite of quarterly sector watch on the country’s LPG and small-scale LNG industries, while releasing a new comprehensive investment report twice a year.

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Worley awarded FEED Phase II contract for Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline

Worley has announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide main front-end engineering design (FEED Phase II) services for the 7,000km Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) project. The feasibility study and FEED Phase I were previously completed by Penspen. The project is led by Morocco and Nigeria’s national oil companies, the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) and NNPC Ltd. If completed, it would be the longest offshore pipeline in the world. Its FEED study already received financing from the Islamic Development Bank in December 2021. The development bank had then declared that a final investment decision (FID) was targeted for 2023. The pipeline has been on the table for some time and is seen as an extension of the existing West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP) that was commissioned in 2011. However, WAGP has been plagued by several operational issues, including unreliable gas supplies from Nigeria and legacy debt payments from off-takers. The NMGP is expected to traverse 13 West African countries and offer African gas producers a new avenue to export their gas to neighboring countries and to Europe. Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mauritania all have discovered gas reserves located offshore. Gas deliveries could be made across the pipeline route to African markets seeking to secure additional gas supplies or exported all the way up to Europe via Morocco. “The overall FEED services will be managed by Intecsea BV, our offshore engineering consultancy business in The Hague, the Netherlands. This includes the development of the project implementation framework and supervision of the engineering survey,” Worley said in a statement. Nigeria holds Africa’s largest gas reserves and is increasingly seeking to monetise it domestically and for exports. On February 16th, Minister of Petroleum Timipre Sylva was in Niger to sign the Niamey Declaration with his counterparts from Algeria and Niger. The agreement seeks to put the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline (TSGP) Project back on track – another gas pipeline that would allow Nigeria to export its gas to Europe via Niger and Algeria. Earlier this month, Minister Timipre Sylva also expressed interest in reviving the Brass LNG export terminal project – a 10 mtpa LNG export scheme first discussed in 2003.