(Adds details, quote and background)
By Libby George
LAGOS, May 13 (Reuters) - Nigeria LNG has signed the
engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for
Train 7, its major gas expansion plan, Nigeria's oil minister
said on Wednesday.
The long-awaited project is expected to boost Nigeria's
liquefied natural gas (LNG) output by more than 30%.
Nigeria LNG had previously announced that it would award the
EPC to a consortium including Italy's Saipem, Japan's
Chiyoda and Daewoo of South Korea.
In a statement, Saipem said the overall value of the
contract was above $4 billion, with its share at roughly $2.7
billion.
"The construction phase of Train 7 can now commence in
earnest," Minister of State for Petroleum Timipre Sylva said
during an online event on Wednesday.
NLNG, a consortium between state-run Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Eni, Total and
Royal Dutch Shell, signed its final investment decision
on the Train 7 processing unit late last year.
Nigeria is rich in oil and gas but has been struggling to
boost its output of both resources. Its LNG production has been
steadily falling in recent years.
The Train 7 expansion comes at a difficult time. LNG prices
in Asia and gas prices in Europe have hit record lows as the
coronavirus pandemic worsened already weak demand.
Some buyers have cancelled cargoes as a result, and there
are currently more than a dozen vessels carrying LNG searching
for buyers, seven of them from Nigeria, according to data
intelligence firm Kpler.
Still, Sylva and NNPC chief Mele Kyari said the Train 7 is a
five-year project, giving demand time to rebound, and said it
was key to Nigeria's own economic recovery from the pandemic.
"Unless projects like this go on, the economy will not
improve," Sylva said.
(Additional reporting by Ekaterina Kratsova in London; editing
by David Evans and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
