NEWS
Egypt LNG Train 2 starts up nine months early
London, Sept 5 (LNG journal)
- BG Group of the UK, a stakeholder in the Egyptian liquefied natural gas project, announced on Monday the start-up of the venture's Train 2 nine months ahead of schedule.
BG's partners in the project are Malaysian state oil and gas company Petronas, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. Early cargoes from the new facility will be lifted later this year by BG Group and Asean LNG Trading Co. (Altco), a subsidiary of Petronas.
“This, along with the early delivery of Train 1 by more than three months, sets a new benchmark for the delivery of a green-field LNG project,” said Stuart Fysh, BG Group's managing director for the Mediterranean Basin and Africa .
“It also represents a significant milestone in the development of the Egyptian natural gas industry and an outstanding achievement for BG Group and the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum. The early delivery of this project will create substantial additional value for Egypt , BG and our partners,” Fysh said.
The 3.6 million tonne per annum output of the second train has already been sold to BG Gas Marketing under a 20-year sales and purchase agreement.
BG has both upstream and downstream investments in the Egyptian gas business. It has interests in two gas producing areas offshore the Nile Delta - the Rosetta fields and the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) concession.
The first WDDM fields - Scarab and Saffron - started production in March 2003. The Simian Sienna field commenced production on April 15 this year and the Sapphire field in WDDM is currently being commissioned to supply the $1.9 billion Egyptian LNG project.
The first cargo from Egyptian LNG Train 1 was lifted on May 29 by Altco. The shareholding in the venture are as follows: BG Group (35.5 percent), Petronas (35.5 percent), the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. (12.0 percent), the Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (12.0 percent) and Gaz de France (5 percent).
