By Larry Claasen
KINETIKO Energy expects to start microscale liquefied natural gas (LNG) production at its Amersfoort Development as early as the end of next year.
The Australian based energy group’s Amersfoort Development, which stretches across Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal says though its production will be small scale, it will still be on a commercial basis.
Kinetiko Energy CEO Nick de Blocq says the plan is to start with “just a handful of wells producing a single, modular cryobox which freezes the gas into LNG in the field. Each of these ‘boxes’ requires about ten wells worth of flow and puts out about
5 000 tons per annum of LNG.”
He adds: “As we progress the field we will add more of these mobile cryoboxes until such time as we are able to flow to a fixed plant with around 60 000 tpa output.”
News that Kinetiko Energy is looking to produce gas locally came shortly after the publishing of the Gas Master Plan by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. The plan notes that Sasol’s gas fields in Mozambique, which has been one of the main suppliers of gas to the country for the past 20 years, are coming to their end and will result in substantial shortages from 2026.
No quick fix
De Blocq says despite various moves to produce LNG locally, the country will have to depend on imports.
“Kinetiko Energy, are well positioned geographically to take up the challenge, but the timing is substantially offset to become a seamless shoe-in to take over what Sasol leaves behind. Our calculations show that even with all of the known onshore upstream gas companies collaborating towards a common goal of cleaner energy provision for SA Inc, we cannot avoid having to import LNG one way or another.”
Though Kinetiko Energy is taking a methodical approach to scaling up production, de Blocq says, given the quality of its gas, it is one of the top onshore gas prospects on the planet.
How much gas there is, however, still remains an open question.
“In terms of flow and volumes of production over time, we can only really talk in terms of well-cluster output. Until we have performed some planned appraisal work, starting later this year, we can only make assumptions in our models.”
Even so, the signs are promising.
“As a high-altitude view, with rounded numbers, we believe that fields of about 100 wells or so should provide about 50MWe (mega-watt equivalent) output, which relates to around 60 000 tons per annum of LNG (liquefied natural gas). That is about 3,5-billion cubic feet per year per well cluster, and we can conceive of multiple of these.”
De Blocq adds: “Of huge importance is to understand the recent resource certification provided by Sproule out of the US. They have certified Kinetiko’s 2C (midrange, contingent) gas resource at 6 tcf (trillion cubic feet) with another 5,8 tcf in prospective terms. Compare this to Mossgas who flowed profitably for 20 years and used only 1 tcf. A discovery of 6 tcf of gas equates to a billion barrel oilfield.”
