American company, Noble Energy, an operation on the Alen gas project in Equatorial Guinea, has announced the gas field will enter into service in 2021.

This comes amidst announcements of indefinite postponement and cancellation of energy project across the African continent due to the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company acknowledged the market disruptions caused by the pandemic but emphasises it won’t disrupt the commencement of the project and it has already taken up hedging position on the market to guarantee the company’s global revenues and to keep the project on track.

“The project’s offshore pipeline installation, which will span 43 miles and have the capacity to transport 950 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, is on schedule for Q3 2020, with final hook-up and commissioning being implemented in late 2020.”

The field carries recoverable reserves of about 600 billion cubic feet of natural gas. When completed, gas from the field will be transported to the onshore Punta Europa gas complex which houses Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), methanol and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) processing facilities. This to create an offshore LNG hub in the Gulf of Guinea.

Noble Energy is the technical operator of Block O with a networking interest of 45%, the national oil company of Equatorial Guinea, GEPetrol has a 20% participating interest and a 10% carried interest while Glencore Exploration owns a working interest of 25%. The gross capital expenditures are estimated to be about $300 million for the partners.

Alen, formerly known as Belinda, is gas and condensate field in Block O, about 32kilometres off the east coast of Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, and situated in a water depth of about 76m.