Angola LNG Restart by Mid-2016: Total
Total expects Angola LNG to restart after its more than two-year shutdown by mid-2016.
In its 1Q 2016 results presented on April 27, the French major said it expects its worldwide oil and gas production in full year 2016 to be 4% higher than last year and cited the “start-up of Angola LNG … expected by mid-year” as one contributor for this.
Chevron said in February that Angola LNG would restart in 2Q 2016, so for now it can be argued that the two companies are saying the same thing. However behind the semantics, some doubts remain.
Upstream production worldwide by Total was 2.48mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe/d) in 1Q 2016, up 4% year-on-year. New project start-ups including the Gladstone LNG venture in Australia contributed but they were offset by shutdowns at Yemen LNG and security issues in Nigeria, said Total. Just under half of its worldwide production (so 1.19 boe/d) was gas, representing 6.4bn ft3/d, up 2%.
Total’s LNG sales in Q1 2016 were 6% lower at 2.46mn metric tons, despite Gladstone’s start-up. A full article about Total's results is available here.
Angola LNG is owned by Chevron 36.4%, state-owned Sonangol 22.8%, with BP, Eni and Total each holding 13.6%. Neither Chevron nor Angola LNG have divulged the cost of repair work undertaken since 2014.
Mark Smedley