GLNG: Golar LNG: Hilli Episeyo FLNG boosts production capacity to 1.4mn tpy

Bermuda-registered Golar LNG reports that the Hilli Episeyo, its floating LNG vessel operating offshore Cameroon, has successfully raised production levels to the equivalent of 1.4mn tonnes per year (tpy).

Golar LNG said in a statement on May 26 that the FLNG had succeeded in bringing output up from the equivalent of 1.2mn tpy. It also noted that the vessel had preserved its four-year record of operating at 100% uptime, without any stoppages for accidents, in the first quarter of 2022.

The statement also noted that Golar LNG had earned a total of $64mn from sales of the LNG produced by the Hilli Episeyo in the January-March period. Some $15.6mn of this sum came from the Brent crude-linked portion of the LNG tariff, which applied to the bulk of sales, while another $22.6mn derived from a tariff linked to Dutch TTF market rates net of commodity swaps, which applied to the incremental rise in production, it said.

All of the LNG that the Hilli Episeyo FLNG vessel produces goes to Russia’s Gazprom under a long-term off-take agreement. That agreement gives the state-owned Russian giant access to one of the unit’s two active production trains, each of which has a capacity of 1.2mn tpy.

Golar LNG arranged to have the volume of gas delivered to the FLNG increased last year under an agreement with Perenco (UK/France) and Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), the national oil company (NOC) of Cameroon. Under that agreement, Perenco and SNH were supposed to drill and appraise two or three new incremental wells in 2021 and then upgrade upstream production facilities in 2022 so that they could sustain higher output levels into 2023 and beyond.

The Hilli Episeyo is the first vessel in the world to be converted to an FLNG unit. According to previous reports, the ship began its life as one of Golar LNG’s 125,000-cubic metre tankers and was converted to an FLNG unit at the Keppel shipyards in Singapore at a cost of $1.2bn. It is anchored near the Cameroonian port of Kribi and has been in operation since May 2018.

The vessel liquefies gas from the Sanaga field, which is being developed by Perenco and SNH. The partners pipe gas from the field to an onshore treatment facility for processing before delivering it to the FLNG vessel, which operates under an agreement that generates about $40mn per quarter in tolling revenues.