Seplat, NNPC to raise $700m for gas plant due next year

Bloomberg

Seplat Petroleum Development Co. and Nigeria’s state oil company will raise $700 million for a joint gas project scheduled to start production next year as the government steps up plans to reduce the country’s reliance on oil.
The project, known as Assa North-Ohaji South, is one of seven to boost gas production and infrastructure development in the West African nation, the continent’s biggest producer of crude. ANOH Gas Processing Co., which is owned by Seplat and the Nigerian Gas Co., a unit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., will develop, build and operate the plant in southeastern Imo State.
Seplat and Nigerian Gas will provide 60 percent of the funds as equity, while ANOH will source the balance as debt, Seplat Chief Executive Officer Austin Avuru said in an interview in the commercial capital, Lagos. “Both parties already have each contributed $100 million in equity,” Avuru said. “There will be another equity injection and at the back end of it will be debt.’’
The plant, which will process wet gas from the unitised upstream fields at OML 53 and OML 21, has an initial capacity of 300 million standard cubic feet per day. It’s scheduled to begin production by the last quarter of 2020 and the first supply is targeted in 2021, Avuru said.
Nigeria’s government is encouraging investments in gas infrastructure to improve supplies to power companies and diversify the economy away from oil, which currently accounts for the bulk of revenue.