Angola LNG is a

liquid natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the vol ...

(LNG) facility in

Soyo Soyo (formerly known as ''Santo António do Zaire'') is a city, with a population of 200,920 (2014 census), and a municipality, with a population of 227,175 (2014 census), located in the province of Zaire in Angola, at the mouth of the Congo riv ...

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

Technical features

The Angola LNG plant is a single train facility with production capacity of 5.2 million tonnes per year. The plant uses

ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in ...

' proprietary natural gas liquefaction technology (Optimized CascadeSM Process). In addition to LNG, it also produces

propane Propane () is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used a ...

butane Butane () or ''n''-butane is an alkane with the formula C4H10. Butane is a gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Butane is a highly flammable, colorless, easily liquefied gas that quickly vaporizes at room temperature. The name but ...

and condensate. The plant is supplied from offshore gas fields on blocks 14, 15, 17 and 18, and from non-associated gas fields Quiluma, Atum, Polvo and Enguia. The LNG project is presented as environmentally friendly by its designers, because most of its feedstock will consist of associated gas produced in association with crude oil in offshore field, that is currently flared. However, while LNG production is more environmentally friendly than flaring, liquefaction is also a highly energy-intensive process and a significant percentage of the gas must be burned to generate the energy to cool the rest. The plant was constructed by

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the ''Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the sec ...

. The LNG plant cost US$9 billion, and it was commissioned in 2013. The first LNG was shipped on 16 June 2013.

Project company

The project was proposed to

Sonangol Group Sonangol ( pt, Grupo Sonangol) is a parastatal that formerly oversaw petroleum and natural gas production in Angola. The group consisted of Sonangol E.P. ( pt, Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola, E.P.) and its many subsidiaries. ...

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

in June, 1997. The project, jointly managed by woAh and Texaco, continued evaluation processes and brought in outside partners (originally

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

Elf Aquitaine Elf Aquitaine is a French brand of oils and other motor products (such as brake fluids) for automobiles and trucks. Elf is a former petroleum company which merged with TotalFina to form "TotalFinaElf". The new company changed its name to Total ...

, and BP.) Subsequently Texaco merged with

Chevron Corporation Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...

, ExxonMobil was replaced in the project by Eni, and

merged with Total. Angola LNG was formed as a joint project in 2008 involving Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (36.4%), Sonangol (22.8%), BP (13.6%), Eni (13.6%) and Total (13.6%). Sonangol and Chevron serve as co-project leaders. The shareholders will provide associated gas from their respective offshore oil fields. Director of Angola LNG is Eric Dunning.

Challenges

Angola LNG faced an extended plant shutdown of more than three years from December 2015 to January 2019 to sort out a number of project issues that caused an incident on 10 April 2015.

References

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External links

Company website
Oil and gas companies of Angola Liquefied natural gas plants Natural gas in Angola Energy infrastructure in Angola Companies established in 1997 Soyo

Technical features

Project company

Challenges

See also

References

External links