Natural Gas

Senegal is planning to use its natural gas for ammonia and urea production

By

Senegal’s Petrosen Trading & Services, a subsidiary of the country’s national oil company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Turkey’s Çalık Enerji and Japan’s Mitsubishi for the pre-feasibility study of an ammonia and urea manufacturing unit.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Senegalese President Macky Sall during the 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD8) held in Tunis on August 27th and 28th.

The production of fertilizers is one of the option Senegal is exploring to monetise its offshore gas reserves, currently being developed by bp and Kosmos Energy for the export market. The Greater Tortue/Ahmeyim (GTA) project that straddles the Senegal-Mauritania border will start exporting LNG next year, but has an allocation of 35 MMscf/d reserved for the domestic market. Such allocation is expected to increase once the second phase of GTA is sanctioned, leaving Senegal with plenty of gas to process domestically.

While the country’s strategy relies on switching several of its thermal power plants from diesel and HFO to natural gas, additional industries could also benefit from the processing and transformation of gas reserves.

The pre-feasibility study for a gas-based ammonia and urea plant will be financed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) of Japan and conducted by Mitsubishi Corporation and Nippon Koei.

Read more

Total Eren joins Chariot in developing Mautiania’s flagship green hydrogen project

Total Eren and Chariot Ltd have announced the launch of feasility studies to do-develop Project Nour, a large-scale green hydrogen project in Mauritania. In September 2021, Chariot had already signed an MoU with the Mauritanian Ministry of Petroleum, Mines & Energy to progress the venture. The agreement notably gave Project Nour exclusivity over 14,400km2 of onshore and offshore area where pre-feasibility and feasibility studies would be conducted to generate solar and wind power used in electrolysis to split water and produce green hydrogen and oxygen. The new 50:50 partnership between Total Eren and Chariot will pool additional resources into the project’s feasibility, with a view of developing up to 10 GW in Mauritania. Total Eren already work together on several clean energy projects in Africa, under a long-term joint-development partnership signed in November 2021.

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.