Golar LNG’s Cameroon FLNG project has reached a major milestone with the final approval by all parties of the gas convention of final investment decision (FID) for the project. This FID commits the project to a targeted start date for commissioning of Q2 2017.
At a signing ceremony in Yaounde, Cameroon’s state owned oil and gas company Societe Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), Perenco Cameroon, Golar Hilli Corp. and Golar Cameroon (together Golar) executed a fully effective and binding gas convention with the government of Cameroon which endorses and governs the installation and operation of the GoFLNG vessel in Cameroon waters offshore Kribi.
The binding tolling agreement, having already been agreed between Golar and Perenco, is expected to be formally approved by SNH soon. This agreement establishes the terms under which Golar shall provide liquefaction, storage, and off-loading services to SNH and Perenco as upstream JV partners.
The above activities facilitate the financing structure previously announced and will enable Golar to drawdown up to $700million from the facility to fund the ongoing conversion cost of the GoFLNGHilli. It is estimated that no further direct funding from Golar will be required for the Hilli conversion, with the remainder of the conversion project being financed through this debt facility.
The FLNG 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 JV.
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. It is expected that production will commence in Q2, 2017.