The President of the Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and the Chief Executive Officer of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, on Tuesday laid the foundation stone of Congo LNG.
This will be the country's first natural gas liquefaction project, and is expected to reach an overall liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity of 3 million tons per year (approximately 4.5 billion cubic meters/year) from 2025.
"Congo LNG will exploit the huge gas resources of Marine XII, fulfilling the country’s power generation needs while also fuelling LNG exports, supplying new volumes of gas to international markets focusing on Europe," Eni said.
The project, made through an accelerated development schedule and a zero-flaring approach, will see the installation of two floating natural gas liquefaction plants (FLNG) at the Nenè and Litchendjili fields – already in production – and at the fields yet to be developed.
The first FLNG plant, currently under conversion and with a capacity of 0.6 million tonnes per year (MTPA), will begin production in 2023. The second FLNG plant – already under construction – will become operative in 2025 with a capacity of 2.4 MTPA.
To remind, Eni in August 2022 signed a deal to buy the Tango FLNG floating liquefaction plant from Belgium-based Exmar for use in the Republic of Congo. Tango FLNG, delivered in 2017, has a storage capacity of 16,100 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a liquefaction capacity of up to 0.6 million tons per year.
Then, in December 2022, Eni signed a contract with China's Wison Heavy Industry for the construction and installation of a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit with a capacity of 2.4 MTPA (million tons per annum), also for deployment offshore the Republic of Congo.
The 380-meter-long and 60-meter-wide vessel will be anchored at a water depth of around 40 meters and will be able to store over 180,000 cubic meters of LNG and 45,000 cubic meters of LPG.