Oil and gas supermajor Eni has celebrated the sail away of the Tango Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) and the Excalibur Floating Storage Unit (FSU) vessels from Dubai to the Republic of the Congo.
With the departure, production for the first phase of the Congo Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project is on track for December 2023.
Boasting a liquefaction capacity of approximately one billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, the Tango FLNG and Excalibur FSU vessels will be moored 3km offshore and will be used to serve the Eni-led LNG development.
The Congo LNG project will leverage gas resources and existing production infrastructure from the Marine XII concession, allowing the project to reach approximately 4.5 bcm per year of gas liquefaction capacity. Additionally, the unit will be able to store over 180,000 cubic meters of LNG.
Meanwhile, a second FLNG vessel with a capacity of roughly 3.5 billion cubic meters per year of gas is currently under construction and will begin production in 2025.
“The project will contribute to meeting the Republic of the Congo’s energy needs while seizing the opportunity to exploit the surplus gas through LNG production, allowing the country to join the group of global exporters of LNG with record completion time,” maritime and offshore solutions provider Exmar said in a statement.
Having designed the mooring system and performed refurbishments on both vessels in Dubai, Exmar will represent the Engineering, Procurement and Conversion contractor for the project.
The sail away ceremony was attended by the Republic of the Congo’s Minister of Hydrocarbons, Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua; Eni’s COO for Natural Resources, Guido Brusco; and the Managing Director of the Central African country’s National Oil Company, Société National des Pétroles du Congo.
