In collaboration with Marathon Oil Corp and EG LNG, the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons (MMH) awarded a contract for the development of a Gas Master Plan to British company Gas Strategies on Tuesday. The work is part of the development of Equatorial Guinea’s Gas Mega Hub, for which Definitive Agreements towards the monetization of the Alen unit were signed in April 2019.

The offshore gas mega hub will be the first such venture offshore Africa and aims at pooling stranded gas across the Gulf of Guinea by maximizing existing infrastructure at Punta Europa. While key facilities there, such as EG LNG and Marathon’s methanol plant, have traditionally been relying on gas feedstock from the Alba Field, declining output requires to gather gas from additional fields and reserves in the region.

“Equatorial Guinea has given natural gas a priority in terms of development and monetization, and we believe gas is the key to industrialization and jobs creation,” declared H.E. Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons. “With key initiatives such as LNG2Africa, the ongoing offshore Gas Mega Hub and the Year of Investment 2020, we are going to complete key gas projects in upstream, midstream and downstream that will further diversify our economy, provide opportunities for our local companies, and create jobs for our citizens,” he added.

Under the development, Punta Europa is set to become a gas processing center for all stranded gas fields in the Gulf of Guinea, and could open up economical avenues to monetize offshore gas in Cameroon and Nigeria as well.

The new Gas Master Plan represents an important step towards the realization of this vision, and will help in accelerating and coordinating offshore gas developments, which could eventually lead to the construction of additional liquefaction capacity on Punta Europa.