President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has given the Federal Government’s funding support for the country’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project, which will be developed by an indigenous company, UTM Offshore.
The President on Wednesday received a joint delegation of the UTM Offshore team, Technip Energies and JGC Corporation as well as the French and Japanese ambassadors to the country at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
During the meeting with the delegation, he endorsed the $5 billion for the project’s implementation.
The Group Managing Director, UTM Offshore Limited, Julius Rone, who interacted with the State House correspondents after the meeting, said the project which, would produce 300,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) annually and create 7,000 direct jobs, had been endorsed by the President
According to the industry expert, a $5 billion loan had been signed with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) for the implementation of the project, which is expected to come on stream by Q1 2026.
It would be recalled that on November 11, 2022, UTM Offshore and Technip Energies, KBR, and JGC Corporation signed a front-end engineering design (FEED) agreement for Nigeria’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility in London.
Earlier, in July 2022, Afreximbank announced its execution of a project preparation facility financing terms with UTM Offshore for partial financing to ensure the company’s FLNG project to bankability.
Currently, UTM Offshore is undertaking the development, design, and construction of an FLNG facility with a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production capacity of 1.2 million metric tons per annum and a storage capacity of 200,000 cubic meters and ancillary facilities to be located 60 kilometres from the shore of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, with natural gas feedstock from the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 104.
The FLNG project involves the development and financing of a 1.2m tons per annum facility with a capacity to process 176 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d) of natural gas and condensates.
