Kick-off of Angola LNG Scheduled for June

Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s Oil Minister, announced Tuesday that the official kick-off of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the Angola LNG terminal will be in late June, Reuters reported.

The Soyo-based plant will be subjected to a shipping test next month and if everything goes well, it will start with the exports, focusing on European and Asian markets, where prices range between $6 and $8 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in Europe and around $13 in Asia.

“The project is practically in its final phase and we now see the forecast date (for regular shipments) in the third quarter, towards the end of June,” Reuters cited De Vasconcelos as saying.

The construction of $10 billion plant, with 5.2 million tons per annum capacity, was headed by Angola’s state-owned oil company, Sonangol, and it will pave the way for meeting the government’s objective of producing an average of 1.8 million barrels of crude per day (mbpd) this year.

In addition, as confirmed by De Vasconcelos, the government has decided to create a new unit of Angola LNG, for the purpose of changing the focus from the US to the European and Asian markets, thus pushing ahead with meeting the objective.

The new unit is said to function on short tender based contracts, whereas the sale prices for the new markets will be determined on individual basis, i.e., agreed on each cargo.

[mappress]

LNG World News Staff, April 25, 2012; Image: Bechtel