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Africa’s largest Petrochemicals Company has finished construction of a huge facility in the United States of America.

Johannesburg listed Sasol built a 1.5Million-ton-per-year ethane cracker, as well as six downstream chemical units and associated utilities, infrastructure and offsites in Westlake, Louisiana, United States.

The project achieved first steam in August 2018. Utilities to support the early process units were fully operational by the end of November 2018 and the linear low-density polyethylene unit achieved beneficial operations in February 2019.

More than 6,000 staff and craft were on site at peak to build the complex, which use the ethylene produced by the cracker to manufacture high-value chemicals that are used in everyday consumer products. The project team strengthened and widened more than two miles of roadway in the community to support the completion of more than 500 heavy haul transports to the project site.

The construction was undertaken for Sasol by two main contractors, Fluor Corporation and TechnipFMC, who integrated a team of 30 main construction contractors and worked in collaboration with Sasol.

Norwegian oil producer Panoro Energy ASA has lifted its first cargo of crude oil from the TPS assets in Tunisia.

Some 151,000 barrels of Rhemoura blend crude oil was lifted from La Skhirra Terminal in Tunisia in the first week of March 2019. “The pricing for this cargo was based on Rhemoura blend which is at a modest discount to Dated Brent in line with the differentials achieved in the recent past”, the company explains. “Panoro’s net participation in this lifting is 60%”.

Panoro had purchased 49% equity and operatorship of the TPS Assets from OMV, the Austrian player, in November 2018. It also purchased the 52.5% of the Sfax offshore Exploration Permit, from the same party: both for $65Million.

Current production of the TPS assets is around 4,000 barrels of oil per day.

Approximately 50 wells have been drilled in the TPS fields to date, whilst some of these wells have been abandoned, 14 remain on production with 5 wells currently shut-in awaiting workovers or reactivation. Two wells are used for disposal of produced water. Production facilities consist of the various wellhead installations, connected via intra-field pipelines to processing, storage and transportation systems. Crude is transported to a storage and export terminal about 70 km south of the Assets at La Skhira.

Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Obijackson Group, parent of Nestoil Ltd, says that mechanical completion of the Oben Obiafu-Obrikom pipeline, a part of which the company is constructing, will be done by the end of March 2019 “and pre-commissioning and finalcommissioning much later in the year”.
Azudialu-Obiejesi told Africa Oil+Gas Report in a wide ranging interview: “We are at the mostinteresting and exciting part of the job. In the next few weeks, when we announce its completion; it would be one of the most interesting engineering achievements in pipeline construction in Nigeria.We are trying to get 48” sized pipeline under the River-Niger from the eastern part across the otherpart of the Niger, some 1.8km on the other side of the river”.

The company explains that there’s a host of challenges delivering the job, a crucial east –west pipeline meant to deliver gas from the rich reserves in the east of the country to the large markets in the west. The pipeline will help create some sort of a gas grid for the country. “It is the sheer scale and size and complexity of the river crossing and also the fact that you have a
seasonal window to operate” that have made the construction work so onerous, Azudialu-Obiejesi explains. “Once the rain starts, you are unable to do any work in those areas and you find that you have huge equipment that can be submerged when the river overflows its bank. We also had security challenges. In January 2018, Nigeria’s security operatives killed one of the major militants in the Omoku area. Many Nigerians who may be aware of the project may not be aware that the main operating area of this militant and his associates was in Omoku and its environs, the same vicinity where a large percentage of Nestoil’s section resides.  That was a major challenge but we are glad to announce that the worst is over as far as this project is concerned”.

“Our first significant subsea EPCI project in West Africa”-McDermott

McDermott International, the New York listed subsea engineering contractor and Baker Hughes GE, the self-styled Full Stream oil and gas company, have been awarded subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) and subsea production system (SPS) equipment contracts by BP for the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim natural gas project, located offshore Mauritania and Senegal.

McDermott was awarded a substantial* engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) SURF contract. “The company “plans to use its upgraded Amazon vessel, DLV 2000, North Ocean 102 (NO 102) and third-party vessels to support installation scheduled to begin in late 2020”, the company says. The Amazon modifications are scheduled to be completed before the installation campaign begins and will include a multi-joint (hex) J-Lay system to handle the most challenging ultra-deepwater projects as well as the addition of a multi-joint facility, dual pipe loading cranes and additional power generation”. McDermott also says that the pipeline and riser structures it designs will be fabricated at its yard in Batam, Indonesia.

BHGE, on its own, declares that it is “demonstrating the benefits of early-engagement and collaboration – some of the key components of Subsea Connect – as well as bringing its expertise in deepwater, long-offset gas projects”. The company will provide five large-bore deepwater horizonal xmas trees (DHXTs), a 6-slot dual bore manifold, a pipeline end manifold, subsea distribution units (SDUs), three subsea isolation valves (SSIVs), diverless connections and subsea production control systems, specifically designed to enable the future integration of additional wells for the first phase of the development.

Tareq Kawash, McDermott’s Senior Vice President for Europe, Africa, Russia and Caspian testifies:  “This contract marks a number of firsts: our first significant subsea EPCI project in West Africa; the first project using our state of the art pipelay vessel Amazon; and our support of BP’s first entry into Senegal and Mauritania. This project is also of significant importance in support of our aspirations in this region,” said. “Our collaboration with BHGE allows us to offer BP an integrated approach that builds on our proven solutions. We look forward, along with BHGE, to deliver this landmark project to BP with the highest levels of safety and quality.”

“Together with McDermott, we will deliver the best-in-class solution to BP with cost-efficiency and industry-leading safety. These awards demonstrate the value of early-engagement, collaborative partnerships and holistic project planning, which are very much central to our new approach to subsea developments, Subsea Connect,” said Graham Gillies, BHGE’s Vice President, Subsea Production Systems & Services. “This major deepwater gas development is strategically important for Mauritania and Senegal’s domestic and global gas supply, and supports the industry’s drive for a more sustainable, lower carbon future.”

These latest awards follow an initial front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase, awarded in March 2018, during which BHGE and McDermott worked together to define the technology and equipment scope for a four-well development phase. Project management and engineering teams from BP, BHGE and McDermott will remain co-located at McDermott’s London offices for this next phase.

BHGE has also signed an agreement to become a “Country Partner” of Invest in Africa’s (IIA) Senegal chapter, of which BP is a founding member. The IIA helps local suppliers to connect with international oil and gas companies, increasing the opportunities for local businesses to support large-scale projects, and training African suppliers on core business skills and entrepreneurship.

Project Details
The initial subsea infrastructure connects the first four of 12 wells consolidated through production pipelines leading to a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel. From here liquids are removed and the export gas is transported via a pipeline to the floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) hub terminal where the gas is liquefied.

* – McDermott defines a substantial contract as between $500 million to $750 million. The contract award will be reflected in McDermott’s first quarter 2019 backlog.

Oilfield production optimisation has proved a little more difficult than expected for Kosmos Energy in the Ceiba-Okume complex, offshore Equatorial Guinea, an asset which it purchased as operator in October 2017.

Average production in 2018 came to about 44,100BOPD, a less stellar performance than the prognosis in the company’s 2017 annual report.

Kosmos Energy had boasted, in that report, that it had increased production by over 3,000BOPD to 45,000BOPD in the last two months of 2017 and two months into 2018. But keeping the production uptick has proved difficult, otherwise the output should be a few thousand barrels per day north of 44,000BOPD.

The American independent had purchased the fields from compatriot Hess Corp. in October 2017 and had proposed a range of solutions to boost output, including waterflood, electric submersible pump (ESP) installation and in-fill drilling.

Kosmos also declared that there was a potential to double recovery factor in the two fields, “with about ~400Million barrels remaining”.