Chevron’s Escravos GTL project in Nigeria running behind schedule

The long-delayed EGTL project, operated by Chevron Nigeria Limited, will come on stream before the end of this year.

The $9.5 billion Escravos project is a 33,000-barrel-per-day GTL project designed to process 325 million cubic feet per day of natural gas from the Escravos Gas Plant expansion.

As far back as October 2000, United States-based Chevron said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and Chevron Nigeria Limited had joined to bring the plant on stream by 2005, adding that the Nigeria EGTL project, announced in September 8, 2000, was to be the first GTL project in which the global joint venture will be involved.

Almost fourteen years after, the plant has yet to come on stream. Chevron had in 2000 said that the preliminary design and engineering have been completed on the facility, which will be capable of converting natural gas into synthetic crude oil for further processing into commercial products – principally high-quality naphtha products and premium fuels.

The project is being developed by Chevron Nigeria Limited (75 percent stake) and NNPC (15 percent) and Sasol (10 percent) with plans to expand the EGTL capacity to 120,000 barrels per day within 10 years.

BusinessDay had reported in March that the plant, which was hoped to begin operations before the end of 2013, was expected to start up before the end of June this year.

The construction has been completed and the plant is now in the commissioning phase, according to David Constable, Sasol chief executive officer in a statement about upcoming project milestones in the 2014 calendar year.

“In Nigeria, the Escravos GTL project is in start-up phase. Beneficial operation for the first train is expected before the end of June,” Constable said during a March 10, 2014 presentation he made on Sasol Limited financial results, for the six months ended 31 December 2013.

The Escravos GTL project has been severally delayed and capital expenditure on it is approaching $10 billion, according to Chevron, one of the shareholders. This compares with the $1.2 billion that was spent on the Oryx GTL project in Qatar, a similar project in terms of technology and capacity, which was inaugurated in 2006.

The Slurry Phase Distillate technology developed by Sasol and utilised at the Oryx project will also be in use at the Escravos project.

The Escravos GTL project will produce diesel, kerosene, naphtha and LPG – with the diesel and kerosene providing the nation with premium transportation fuels: diesel for road vehicles and kerosene to produce jet fuel for aviation.

The products are expected to offset some oil product imports.