Italy’s Saipem eyes long-term

Italian engineering giant Saipem hopes to play a long-term role in the development of sub-Saharan African LNG infrastructure, its chief operating officer for onshore, Maurizio Coratella, said in an interview.

Saipem-led consortiums were selected as the main EPC contractors for both the two-train Mozambique LNG plant and the Nigeria LNG Train 7 expansion project. “We are seeing a growing LNG market in Africa, and countries like Mozambique and Nigeria have plenty of gas so it is very likely they will further expand their capacity in the near future,” Coratella said. “We are heading toward a world that will be more and more sensitive to greenfield installations, where commodity price competition will be challenging, and the main consequence is that the add-on of new trains on existing facilities will be cheaper and will give shorter time to market for our clients. “Whoever is already present and mobilized in certain areas will be better positioned to benefit from synergies, lessons learned and investment already done,” he said. Coratella said Saipem would aim to be the preferred partner for LNG expansion projects as they happen.

“In Nigeria we have been recently awarded together with Daewoo the Bonny Train 7 project, relying on our long-term presence in the country where we have developed previous trains. We hope that one day we will also be building the seventh train in Mozambique,” he said.

At Mozambique LNG, work remains on track despite the growing Islamist insurgency. “I don’t see this as disruption that could potentially jeopardize the schedule,” Coratella said. “We have contracted almost everything and we have transferred off site some of the construction that we would have done on site.”Nonetheless, Saipem remains committed to helping develop a local industry in Mozambique around the project. “We don’t want Mozambique to lose local content. We look at Mozambique like Nigeria. We want to develop infrastructure, the participation of local employees, knowledge transfer also through a dedicated training center, and the building of competence there,” he said.