Chevron defers expansion of natural gas processing plant in Nigeria, explores shale in China

24-Feb-12

Chevron Corp has pushed back the expansion of a natural gas processing plant in Nigeria, originally slated for this year, by another three years, according to its annual report, which also revealed it was exploring for shale gas in China, as per Reuters. Nigeria's Escravos Gas Plant Phase 3B, which is designed to gather 120 million cubic feet of natural gas/day from 8 offshore fields and then compress and transport it to onshore facilities, has already been delayed by a year. Phase 3A will feed a US$8.4 bln gas-to-liquids plant nearby when that starts up next year, having itself been delayed for three years and seen its estimated cost more than double. Construction continues on Phase 3B last year, and project is now expected to be completed in 2016. The Chuandongbei natural gas project in China will now start up in 2013 instead of this year, but Chevron also said it signed a joint study agreement to explore for shale gas in the Qiannan Basin last April, and started seismic operations to evaluate it in July. Chevron is already exploring shale resources in Argentina, where it expects to drill two exploratory wells this year in the Vaca Muerta formation, as well as in Poland and Romania.