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Cote d’Ivoire mulls LNG supply from Nigeria

By Sulaimon Salau
12 March 2015   |   11:10 pm
· As NNPC affirms gas supply commitment to Ghana via WAGP corridor
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Agaga (left); Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Oscar N. Onyema; President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan; and the President of Council, NSE, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, at the commissioning of the NSE X-Gen trading platform, at the Exchange, yseterday.

Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Agaga (left); Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Oscar N. Onyema; President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan; and the President of Council, NSE, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, at the commissioning of the NSE X-Gen trading platform, at the Exchange, yseterday.

THE nation’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market may have continued to broaden as the Republic of Cote D’ Ivoire signaled its intention to procure the commodity from Nigeria in support of its growing power needs.

Confirming the development in a statement yesterday, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Ohi Alegbe, said the package, which is the first of its kind in the West African sub-region would see Nigeria commit a small chunk of its daily LNG output which stands at over three billion cubic feet of gas per day, to its sub-regional neighbors in the first instance before the eventual extension of the West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP) to Cote D’Ivoire and Senegal.

A Director in the Ivorien Ministry of Energy, who led a delegation to the NNPC Towers Abuja recently, Kone Moussa, stated that his country would be relying on structural diversion of LNG cargoes from Nigeria as a starter within the next few months to tackle the growing energy needs.

Moussa informed that the country has already entered into a working relationship with Sahara Energy to drive the process.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Joseph Dawha, however stated that the NNPC is ready to cash in on the opportunity in line with its overall strategic expansion drive for Nigeria’s LNG market.

Dawha, who was represented by the Group Executive Director, Gas and Power of the NNPC, David Ige, emphasized that the move would help broaden the nation’s supply base.

“At the moment the entire West African Sub-region starting from Nigeria is undergoing phenomenal economic growth and that practically translates into a higher demand for energy. As you know the West African Gas pipeline terminates in Ghana, so Cote D’Ivoire has come to request that we bring gas to them in the first instance by LNG and ultimately in the future by extension of the pipeline,” Ige said.

Image: NLNG

Image: NLNG

He noted that apart from offering a strategic opportunity for NNPC and Nigeria, the project is in line with the NEPAD spirit and would serve the mutual growth of ECOWAS member countries by fostering the economic integration of the West Africa corridor.

“What this means is that in future we don’t have to go as far as Europe or Asia to supply LNG when we can do so next door,” he said.

Meanwhile, a delegation from Ghana led by the Minister of Power, Kwabena Donkor was earlier at the NNPC Towers to seek support on recent unintended gas supply disruptions in the West Africa Gas Pipeline grid.

Ige assured that the NNPC is working aggressively with all other partners in the WAGPCO to restore supply disruptions wrought by extraneous factors.

“It has been a very difficult time not only for Ghana but for Nigeria as well because of the disruptions in pipelines. But I believe and strongly too that the various interventions that are ongoing by the Federal Government would help restore as well as grow the reliability of the WAGP,” he said.

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