Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell, and Chevron Corp. signed a $20 million joint venture agreement in late September to join in construction of the West African Gas Pipeline.
At a ceremony the previous week in Cotonou, capital of Benin, a memorandum of understanding for the pipeline was signed by the energy ministers of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana-the four nations involved in the scheme.
Speaking at the contract signing in Abuja, NNPC Managing Director Jackson Gaius-Obaseki said that the project would be executed in stages and that the first stage-feasibility studies-had been completed at a cost of $2 million.
Gaius-Obaseki said that a concession agreement would soon be signed before the construction work would proceed and that the entire project had been estimated to cost about $400 million dollars.
The pipeline is intended to take gas from Nigerian fields at a rate of up to 120 MMcfd in the first year. Some sources say this may double or triple over the life of the project as markets grow, existing industries switch to gas, and new regional developments are completed.
Chevron Nigeria Ltd. will manage the construction project (OGJ, Aug. 23, 1999, p. 42). The pipeline is scheduled to deliver first gas in 2002.