BP, partners near first Tortue LNG cargo

BP operates GTA with a 56 percent working interest alongside Kosmos Energy (27 percent), Petrosen (10 percent), and SMH (7 percent). 

“The first LNG cargo is expected later this quarter, with an LNG tanker currently standing by the hub terminal ready for loading,” Dallas-based Kosmos said on Monday.

Also, the partnership is “working collaboratively to prioritize both the low-cost brownfield expansion of the development to fully utilize the existing infrastructure, and future cost optimization for the first phase of GTA with the near-term focus on the re-financing of the FPSO leaseback arrangement,” it said.

According to its AIS data, the 2019-built 173,400-cbm, British Sponsor, which is on charter to BP, was located near the GTA hub on Monday.

Last month, BP and its partners started flowing gas from wells at the GTA Phase 1 LNG project to its floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the next stage of commissioning.

At the FPSO, gas is being processed to remove any condensate, water, and impurities ahead of delivery to the floating LNG vessel for liquefaction.

The FLNG started producing LNG earlier this month.

The first phase of the delayed project features Golar LNG’s FLNG Gimi and the Tortue FPSO.

In February last year, the 2.5 mtpa FLNG, which was converted from a 1975-built Moss LNG carrier with a storage capacity of 125,000 cbm, arrived at the GTA hub.

After that, the project’s FPSO unit also arrived at the GTA project off the coasts of Mauritania and Senegal in May.

In 2020, the partners signed a sales and purchase agreement under which BP Gas Marketing will offtake 2.45 million tonnes per annum of LNG from the first phase of the GTA project for an initial term of up to 20 years.

BP’s unit is the sole offtaker of the project’s volumes.