Nigeria Slipping Away

Suppliers in Oman, Nigeria, Trinidad and Australia have commissioned no less than five trains totaling an astounding 20.6 MMt/y of new liquefaction capacity in the past several months. Australia’s Darwin LNG exported its first cargo just a few days ago while the fifth train at Nigeria LNG was handed over for startup last month and has yet to ship out a single cargo. Others including Atlantic LNG’s fourth train and the new Nigerian facilities have feedgas issues to contend with and may take longer than expected to ramp up to plateau. A case in point is Nigeria LNG, who has factored in a conservative 12-month build up profile for its two-train NLNGPlus project. Despite these drawbacks, the amount of new capacity associated with these new production units is still very impressive (see table below). Several of the facilities, including NLNGPlus and Atlantic LNG’s train 4, had been scheduled for startup last year and their availability would have helped ease this winter’s tight spot market. But operations were delayed by a variety of glitches ranging from the usual mechanical problems associated with commissioning to difficulties in synchronizing development of the upstream gas reserves nominated to supply the new trains.