05-06-2012

Angola LNG plant ensuring gas supply through GE service agreement

Angola LNG, operator of one of the world’s most modern LNG and processing facilities in Soyo, Zaire Province in Angola, and GE Oil & Gas have signed a long-term contractual service agreement (CSA) designed to increase overall plant efficiency and provide maximum availability for the key gas compression equipment. GE announced the agreement today at World Gas Conference 2012 in Kuala Lumpur.

Angola LNG, a major LNG producer with operations in Angola and the United States, is a consortium composed of some of the world’s leading oil and gas companies including Sonangol, which has a 22.8 percent share; and affiliates of Chevron (36.4 percent), Total (13.6 percent), BP (13.6 percent) and ENI (13.6 percent). The Soyo LNG facility, located 315 kilometers north of Luanda, will ship the first LNG cargo this quarter and will produce approximately 5.2 million tons of LNG and related gas liquid products per year.

The CSA will cover two GE gas turbine-driven compression trains—including additional plant equipment—ensuring continuous technical assistance and an on-site team of highly skilled GE Field Services Engineers, applying effective maintenance approaches and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) spare parts to optimize performance and maximize mean time between maintenance. A local contractual performance manager at the site will oversee the day-to-day service operations.

“We are confident that GE, as the equipment OEM, offers the best expertise for turbine maintenance and is able to guarantee the highest levels of availability,” said Daniel Rocha, general manager of Angola LNG Operating Company. “This agreement is structured to facilitate strong teamwork with a common objective between our companies. We believe this collaboration will benefit our operations and Angola, too.”

Girish Saligram, contractual services leader, GE Oil & Gas Global Services, said, “We will work in close collaboration with the operators in Angola, contributing to the development of the local workforce. Our combined team will apply GE’s outage excellence approach, adopting proven methods to increase machine uptime.”

GE CSAs are built on GE’s extensive design and field experience in all oil and gas applications, including platform applications, pipelines, LNG plants and processing plants. GE currently has CSAs in place in more than 40 countries covering more than 1000 units.