The development of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility would ease the pressure on South African national oil company PetroSA’s dwindling natural gas reserves, CEO Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo said at the recent Gas Week conference, in Johannesburg.

The State-owned group was faced with insufficient gas reserves at the gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery in Mossel Bay, in the Western Cape, to sustain the firm over the next two decades.

An LNG import plant would enable South Africa to tap into the recent gas discoveries off the East African coast and to benefit from lower LNG prices.

“We are excited about [the] finds in East Africa,” she said, noting that PetroSA could leverage the imported gas reserves while it sought out further feedstock sources of its own.

The potential project included the possibility of importing LNG into Mossel Bay through a floating LNG facility.

“This will see our GTL refinery continu-ing to produce liquid petroleum fuels, thus contributing to security of fuel supply in the country,” Nokwe-Macamo said.

The refinery, the world’s first GTL plant and currently the third-largest, converts natural, methane-rich gas into ultraclean, low-sulphur, low-aromatic synthetic fuels and high-value products.

It sources its feedstock from PetroSA’s FA-EM and South Coast gasfields, as well as the Oribi and Oryx oilfields in Block 9, off the coast of South Africa.

The plant has the capacity to produce 45 000 bbl/d of crude oil equivalent, but is currently operating at about 35 000 bbl/d.

To date, the GTL refinery has produced 70-million barrels of crude oil equivalent and one-trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The refinery produces 5% of South Africa’s fuel requirements, which PetroSA aims to increase to 25% by 2020.

The timelines for the LNG project have not yet been determined and the value of the potential project has not been disclosed, as studies are still under way. Previous reports suggest that the development could cost about $400-million.

PetroSA earlier this year tasked WorleyParsons with undertaking a feasibility study and the front-end engineering design study, after completion of environmental-impact assessments by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.