Eni and its partners have taken the final investment decision (FID) for the Nigeria LNG Expansion Project, the expansion project of their existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant located at Bonny Island in Nigeria.

According to the Italian oil and gas giant, the brownfield development at the NLNG plant, which is slated to be brought into operations in 2024, will boost the annual production capacity to over 30 million tonnes per year (Mtpa) from the present capacity of 22.5 Mtpa.

The Nigeria LNG Expansion Project is said to facilitate the production of a further 7.6 Mtpa of LNG, of which 4.2 Mtpa will be from a new liquefaction train – Train 7, while 3.4 Mtpa will be from the debottlenecking of existing trains.

The NLNG plant, which has been a six-train LNG facility, has been operating since 1999. In 20 years, the Nigerian LNG plant had produced more than 4,700 LNG cargoes around the world.

The Nigeria LNG Expansion Project will help the NLNG facility become one of the major LNG gas hubs in the world, and will enable the partners to further utilize Nigeria’s richly available associated gas resources, said Eni.

The Italian oil and gas giant is a founding partner of the NLNG plant and has a stake of 10.4%. The company is partnered by NNPC (49%), Royal Dutch Shell (25.6%), and Total (15%).

The Nigeria LNG Expansion Project will also give more than 1 Mtpa of capacity to the global LNG portfolio of Eni, which has been operating in Nigeria since 1962.

  Bonny Island, Eni, Liquefied natural gas, Nigeria, NLNG, NNPC, Royal Dutch Shell, Total