UK-based energy giant BP is now expecting to launch the first phase of its Greater Tortue Ahmeyim FLNG project located offshore Mauritania and Senegal in the first quarter of 2024.
“Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) Phase 1 now expected to start-up during the first quarter of 2024,” BP said in its second-quarter report on Tuesday.
The firm did not provide any additional information.
Project partner Kosmos Energy said in May that the project remained on track to achieve its first gas by the end of this year.
The project includes the conversion of Golar LNG’s Gimi to a floating LNG producer at Singapore’s Keppel shipyard.
Golar said in May the yard departure date for the FLNG had been postponed from the first half of this year to the third quarter of this year to “allow for vessel completion and testing and a greater proportion of commissioning work to be performed in Singapore.”
However, Golar said at the time that the updated sail away timing was not expected to impact first feed gas on the Tortue project.
The 2.5 mtpa Gimi FLNG will serve BP’s Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project under a 20-year deal.
Moreover, the project’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit left Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry’s yard in Qidong, China in January this year.
According to its AIS data on Tuesday, the FPSO was located offshore Port Louis, Mauritius.
Following completion of commissioning activities at the site offshore Mauritania and Senegal, the FPSO will process natural gas – removing condensate, water, and other impurities – before exporting it by pipeline to the project’s FLNG facilities, 10km offshore.
With eight processing and production modules, the FPSO will process around 500 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
The FLNG will liquefy majority of the gas, enabling export to international markets, while some of the supplies will help meet growing demand in the two host countries, BP previously said.
Second phase
Besides the first phase, BP and its partners are also working on the second phase.
In February, BP and partners confirmed the development concept for the second phase of the GTA LNG project that they will take forward to the next stage of evaluation.
The partnership, composed of BP, Petrosen, SMH, and Kosmos will evaluate a gravity-based structure (GBS) as the basis for the GTA Phase 2 expansion project with total capacity of between 2.5-3 million tonnes per annum.
The concept design will also include new wells and subsea equipment, integrating with and expanding on existing GTA infrastructure.