Natural Gas

Rwanda has broken ground on new CNG project from Lake Kivu

Picture: Primature of Rwanda

By

On August 18th, Rwanda’s Prime Minister Dr. Edouard Ngirente officiated the groundbreaking ceremony of GasMeth Energy’s new compressed natural gas (CNG) project on the shores of Lake Kivu.

The project will be extracting gas from Lake Kivu before processing it and distributing it across Rwanda as CNG, an alternative to imported diesel and HFO.

GasMeth Energy holds a 25-year concession with the Government of Rwanda to extract 40 MMscf/d of natural gas from Lake Kivu. The gas will be extracted offshore before being sent to an onshore gas processing and compression facility.

Visual: GasMeth Energy

This is the third project to be developed in Rwanda to extract gas from the Lake, which serves as a natural boundary with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In 2016, ContourGlobal commissioned its 26 MW KivuWatt project, a floating gas-to-power barge turning Lake Kivu’s deadly methane into power for Rwandan households and industries.

Since 2019, Shema Power Lake Kivu, owned by Highland Group Holdings, has also been constructing a 56 MW methane gas extraction and gas-to-power plant under a public-private partnership (PPP) there. The project is structured as an independent power producer (IPP) and is currently being completed.

Read more

Globeleq planning 3.6 GW green hydrogen project in Egypt

Globeleq has announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Egypt’s New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE), the Sovereign Fund of Egypt for Investment and Development (TSFE), and the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), to jointly develop a large-scale green hydrogen facility within the Suez Canal Economic Zone. The project will be developed in three phases totalling 3.6 GW of eletrolysers and 9 GW of solar PV and wind power generation. Globeleq will act as lead developer and investor and start with an initial pilot phase relying on a 100 MW electrolyser and focusing on green ammonia fertilizers. Egypt’s vast solar and wind resources have already attracted global investors into some of the world’s largest green energy projects there, including the Benban Solar Park. Earlier this year, Scatec had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE), The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE), the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), and the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), to jointly develop a green ammonia facility with a production capacity of one million tonnes per year, with a potential for an expansion to three million tonnes annually.

Equatorial Guinea: deal signed for new 20,000 bpd refinery

The Vice Presidency of Equatorial Guinea has announced the signing of a new agreement between national oil company GEPetrol and Chinese companies China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) and CIRDL for the construction of a new 20,000 bpd refinery. The deal was signed on August 16th during a signing ceremony presided by Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue at the Palacio del Pueblo in Malabo. Financing is expected to be covered at 44% by Equatorial Guinea and 56% by its new Chinese partners. Equatorial Guinea has had refining ambitions for several years as it tries to expand its downstream infrastructure. From Punta Europa on Bioko Island, the country has already established one of Africa’s most successful downstream gas hubs producing liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and methanol. In March 2020, Equatorial Guinea had notably shortlisted Petrojet of Egypt, Rosslyn Energy of the UK, a Spanish-Russian group of Selquimica International with Engineering and Energy, and the UAE’s SDLE International for a new modular refinery in Kogo South on Bata. The same year, American company VFuels had been awarded the feasibility study for another modular refinery at Punta Europa.