By Toyin Akinosho, Publisher
ExxonMobil has no gas sales on the African continent. Its entire output for the region, which averaged 489,000BOPD in 2014, was crude oil and liquid hydrocarbon. The company is not involved in the processing and output of natural gas in Nigeria, Chad, Equatorial Guinea or Angola. If the company follows through on the long-proposed Qua Ibo Gas to power project in Nigeria, it would be its first monetized gas processing project anywhere in Africa.
ExxonMobil was one of the three American majors not involved in the development of Nigerian LNGs in the 90s. The company is in an aggressive gas reinjection mode in Nigeria, which remains its African jewel. It re-injected 91% of the 840Billion cubic feet of gas it produced in the country’s shallow water asset in 2012, and flared 6%, with the remaining utilized for oilfield work. In deepwater, it re-injected 91% of the 139Bcf of gas produced in the same year, flaring 4%.
ExxonMobil’s massive re-injection projects in Nigeria are aimed at increased oil production. The East Gas project, for one, targets production of 500Million barrels of oil over several decades, via pressure induced by gas re-injection.
ExxonMobil’s Angolan gas flare out programme is not much in the public domain; but, as in Nigeria, the company was not keen on being part of an LNG project and, in this particular case, it was part of an early discussion, but exited the project long before the process leading to FID.
“If the company follows through on the long-proposed Qua Ibo Gas to power project in Nigeria”.. doesn’t quite sound like they are very keen on the project . Please what would you say is the extent they have gone with it thus far? Thanks.