FrazEnergy Limited a subsidiary of Oilserv Limited a pipeline infrastructural development company has announced its partnership with Galileo Technologies of Argentina to build a gas processing plant in Kwale Delta State Nigeria. With this unprecedented investment stride, FrazEnergy is expected to unlock about 5mmscf natural gas into the Nigeria market through their plan

This massive investment plan by FrazEnergy and its technology partner Galileo Technologies to build the 5 million standard cubic feet of Gas gathering and treatment plant was announced at the sideline of just concluded NOG Energy Week Conference and exhibition in Abuja Nigeria; with theme Showcasing Opportunities, Driving Investment, Meeting Energy Demand.

According to the General Manager FrazEnergy Limited Mr Obi Okonkwo, the contest of establishment FrazEnergy was born out of the Oilserv unwavering commitment in making Nigerian industrial gas market as well its domestic gas space accessible to cheaper and cleaner source of power which is natural gas thereby achieving the invaluably aspiration of the present government of Nigeria headed by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu in seeing that Nigeria at the Centre stage of global gas market through her Decade of Gas initiative and implementation policies.

“Oilserv for the last three decades has been built for other firms and now for FrazEnergy and our investment partners we intend to develop projects for ourselves. Our area of focus is in the space of gas, ranging from gas processing, treatment and transportation, whether by physical pipeline, virtual pipeline.

In downstream especially in the gas utilization, like power as a service,we can do captive and embedded power and any other industries that utilizes power like in the petrochemical sector and actually in each of these spaces we are currently developing projects,” General Manager FrazEnergy Limited Mr Obi Okonkwo stated.

He further highlighted the reason behind the choice of making Galileo Technologies from Argentina as a project technology partner in construction of this first of its kind gas plant project in Nigeria. Mr Okonkwo stated that Galileo Technologies is a World renowned cryogenics technology company with years of outstanding innovative experience in gas compression and liquefaction technology.

“Galileo Technologies is here to unleash its innovative experience in gas technology and basically is an opportunity to capture what would have been flare gas and we are converting these flare gas into commodity gas namely LNG and we are going to produce propane, LPG and some condensate.

“So definitely we are going to take the raw gas, break it into different components and these are specific things we are working with Galileo in converting this supposed flare gas to LNG and sending it into the market space,” He elaborated.

On if the project will incorporate Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as part of the by-products of the gas process plant, Mr. Okonkwo stated that the plant will not integrate CNG as part of the process by-products owing to CNG handling complexities especially in the area of transportation logistics.

“First and foremost there is energy density advantage, on every truck of LNG we produce and put on the road, you need about four to five CNG trucks to achieve the same logistics and we just don’t believe that Nigeria has a good road network and so it is a good stopgap.

“And not trying to say we should not produce CNG in the country, but for us we have analyzed it and we have made a decision that logistically it does not make sense to us to have many trucks on the road. When we can be more efficient with our logistics. So to be fair, the capital requirement for LNG is a little bit better and it is a more sustainable business,” He posited.

Speaking on the sources of the feed state for the plant. Mr. Okonkwo stated that FrazEnergy has concluded with a Marginal Field Operator, Midwestern Oil and Gas for the supply of gas offtake for the plant after completion.     

We are getting our gas from Midwestern Oil & Gas, we have completed and finalized the Gas Purchase and Sales Agreement. Midwestern is one of successful marginal field players in the past decade operating in Umusadege Kwale area of Delta State and its facility is not one of the flare sites NUPRC has awarded so the GPSA is in a willing buying and willing selling situation. To be fair a lot of that gas is an associated gas so at the point of flaring the gas, FrazEnergy has to come in to harness this gas. Mr. Osi Okonkwo said.

On the issue of community social responsibility, Mr Osi asserted that the company has already cordial relationships with the host communities where the gas plant project is expected to be situated.

FrazEnergy has also reiterated the strong commitment and relationship the company has established so far with the host communities where the gas plant is going to be sited. The General Manager Mr. Osi Okonkwo disclosed that the company has recently visited about five communities in the project area and has discovered that Midwestern has been an excellent custodian in this area for more than a decade now, so FrazEnergy is just keying on what they have already done successfully.

“But we engaged communities for our EIS study which we have completed. Knowing that they are one of our key stakeholders and we will definitely engage them in the area of community developmental projects and also in job creation, we will definitely carry them along,” He further added.                       

 In his speech the Commercial Vice President of Galileo Technologies Africa Gabriel Lorenzi stated that his company has a long established record of excellent project execution globally and Nigeria is a first country in Africa where the company for the first time is carrying out this project in the region.

“Galileo Technologies is a company that has been in business since 1980, we started with CNG in South America, Europe, Australia and Africa. In the Africa region we started with CNG compressors – 200 compressors in Egypt, in Angola we are doing gas lift.

“We have installed gas compressor stations in South Africa, Angola, Cameroun and Mozambique. But this particular project in Nigeria is a first of its kind in the region, we are going to propel LNG with our latest innovative and proven technologies in the last 10 years,” Mr. Lorenzi Asserted.

In Africa we have numerous CNG and Process Compressors that Galileo Technologies has built in the last fourteen years in most countries around the World. So this stable Midwestern scale LNG technology is finally coming to the Africa region with our partner FrazEnergy and Oilserv. 

Further in his remarks, the General Manager FrazEnergy Mr. Osi Okonkwo noted that Galileo Technologies has the ability to install a compressor unit that can run up to a million Scf and can be transported from one location to another.

So since, we are one of the companies NUPRC has announced for a locations gas flare out commercialization program and we currently working with NUPRC on this program. As one of the approved technology providers for the flare gas commercialization program, we can move these units to these locations both onshore, offshore, and swampy area and install our compression equipment as required.  And out of these locations there will be LNG, LPC, propane all for local market. Mr. Okonkwo