President Bola Tinubu has welcomed the $800 million Final Investment Decision (FID) for the development of the Ima Gas Project, a resource discovered more than five decades ago but left undeveloped since 1973.
The project, being developed by Nigerian energy company AMNI International in partnership with TotalEnergies, is located across offshore Oil Mining Leases 112 and 117 near Bonny Island, Rivers State.
TotalEnergies, which will operate the project with a 40 per cent interest, said AMNI holds the remaining 60 per cent stake. Production is expected to begin in 2028, with the field projected to reach a plateau of about 350 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
The gas will be transported through a 22-kilometre pipeline to Nigeria LNG, where it is expected to provide about one-third of the feed gas required for the Train 7 expansion project.
The Train 7 expansion is designed to increase Nigeria LNG’s liquefaction capacity from 22 million tonnes per annum to 30 million tonnes per annum.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu said the FID represented another step towards converting Nigeria’s gas resources into investments, jobs and economic opportunities.
“For more than fifty years, the gas beneath Ima remained a resource with enormous potential, but potential alone does not create jobs, finance businesses or improve the lives of our people,” Tinubu said.
The President said his administration would continue to create what he described as a competitive and predictable environment capable of attracting investment into the oil and gas sector.
The Ima project is the fourth major gas development to reach FID since Tinubu assumed office, following the Iseni, Ubeta and HI projects, according to the Presidency.
Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, said the project demonstrated the importance of creating commercial and investment conditions capable of moving discovered resources into production.
“A gas discovery made in 1973 can only contribute to prosperity when somebody invests the capital to develop it, banks finance it, contractors build it, Nigerians work on it, and the gas is ultimately put to productive use,” Verheijen said.
The project is also expected to have a significant Nigerian content component, with TotalEnergies saying all key contractors will be Nigerian companies and about 60 per cent of the development workforce is expected to come from host communities.
The Presidency further said Nigerian financial institutions had arranged 77 per cent of the project’s financing.
Tinubu said the administration’s gas strategy was aimed at using the resource to support LNG exports, industrial production, fertiliser and petrochemical manufacturing, power generation and other economic activities.
“Natural resources have value only when they are converted into opportunities for our people,” the President said.
