Chevron’s Angola LNG Ships First Gas

Chevron’s Angola liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant has shipped its first gas cargo.

The company says the $10 billion African project marks the first new LNG supply to come on-stream since 2010 and will help meet the increasing global demand for LNG.

The first cargo was sold to Angola’s state oil and gas company Sonangol and is currently being shipped to Brazil by the SS Sonangol Sambizanga, one of seven 160,000 m3 LNG vessels that are under long-term charter to the Angola LNG project.

The project will collect and transport natural gas from offshore Angola to an onshore liquefaction plant on the coast near the Congo River. The project has the capacity to produce 5.2 million metric tons per year of LNG, 63,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids for export and 125 million cubic feet per day of natural gas for domestic consumption, Chevron says.

The company says it’s the first LNG project in Angola and one of the largest energy projects on the continent.

Angola LNG plans to use associated natural gas produced from existing crude oil operations operated by Chevron and other partners as well as new non-associated gas from other offshore fields. Chevron expects the project to reduce natural gas flaring and greenhouse gas emissions from offshore producing areas, and support continued offshore oil field development.

Chevron’s subsidiary, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company Limited, has a 36.4 percent interest in the joint-venture, along with Sonangol with a 22.8 percent interest and subsidiaries of Total, BP and ENI, each with a 13.6 percent interest.

Chevron has set a goal to raise its global output of LNG by 20 percent through the end of 2017 — the equivalent of 3.3 million barrels of crude a day, Bloomberg reports. The company is spending more than $77 billion on two Australian LNG projects, and owns a 50 percent stake in the proposed Kitimat LNG terminal on Canada’s Pacific Coast, the news agency says.

Fires, labor shortages and US shale drilling — that reduced demand for African fuel — delayed the Angola LNG project by 18-months, Bloomberg reports.