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Italian energy major Eni on Tuesday launched the construction works for the first natural gas liquefaction project in the Republic of the Congo, which is expected to supply LNG to Europe.
The President of the Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi today laid the foundation stone of Congo LNG. The project is designed to exploit the huge gas resources of Marine XII, with which it would meet the country’s power generation needs and export LNG, supplying new volumes of gas to international markets, with a focus on Europe.
The project will see the installation of two floating natural gas liquefaction plants (FLNG) at the already producing Nenè and Litchendjili fields and at fields yet to be developed. The first FLNG plant, currently under conversion and with a capacity of 0.6 million tons per year (MTPA), will begin production this year. The second FLNG plant is already under construction and will come online in 2025 with a capacity of 2.4 MTPA, Eni said.
“This outcome speaks to the importance of long-term collaboration with our African partners at a time when important strategic choices need to be made in regards to future diversification of supply routes and European energy mixes, in the direction of energy accessibility and availability and progressive decarbonisation,” Eni’s chief executive Descalzi said in a press release.
Over the past year, Eni has focused on diversifying natural gas supply to Europe and has fast-tracked projects in Africa to meet Europe’s gas demand in the absence of Russian pipeline deliveries.
Early this year, Descalzi told the Financial Times in an interview that Europe should look to Africa for a “south-north” energy axis that would deliver gas from Africa to the EU.
At the announcement of the 2022 results in February, Descalzi said, “During the year, we were able to finalize agreements and activities to fully replace Russian gas by 2025, leveraging our strong relationships with producing states and fast-track development approach to ramp-up volumes from Algeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Congo and Qatar.”
