Golar said that the Cameroon FLNG project has reached a major milestone with the final approval by all parties of the gas convention for the project.
This final investment decision commits the project to a targeted start date for commissioning of second quarter, 2017, Golar said on Wednesday.
At a signing ceremony in Yaoundé, Cameroon on September 30, Cameroon’s state owned Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), Perenco, and Golar executed a fully effective and binding gas convention with Cameroon which endorses and governs the installation and operation of the GoFLNG vessel in Cameroon waters offshore of Kribi.
The binding tolling agreement having already been agreed between Golar and Perenco, is expected to be formally approved by the 25% upstream partner SNH imminently. This agreement establishes the terms under which Golar shall provide liquefaction, storage, and off-loading services to SNH and Perenco as upstream joint venture partners, the company said.
The signing of this deal and the finalization of the tolling agreement terms facilitates the financing structure previously reported and will enable Golar to drawdown up to $700m from the facility to fund the ongoing conversion cost.
According to Golar, it is estimated that no further direct funding will be required for the Hilli conversion, with the remainder of the conversion project being financed through this debt facility.
Golar, Perenco and SNH have for the past two years been developing a floating liquefied natural gas export project located near shore off the coast of Cameroon situated in an area of benign sea states and utilizing Golar’s GoFLNG technology.
The project is based on the allocation of 500 Bcf of natural gas reserves from offshore Kribi fields, which will be exported to global markets via the GoFLNG facility “Hilli”, now under construction at Keppel Shipyard in Singapore. Golar will provide the liquefaction facilities and services under a tolling agreement to SNH and Perenco as parties of the upstream joint venture.
It is anticipated that the allocated reserves will be produced at a rate of 1.2 million tons of LNG per annum, representing approximately 50% of the vessel’s nameplate production capacity, over an approximate eight year period.