Ophir Energy Plc has announced that it is in negotiation with a range of shareholders as well as gas buyers to assist in funding its Fortuna FLNG project in Equatorial Guinea, following Schlumberger’s exit.

“We've done all the work in a very difficult environment to deliver a very investable project, (including) bringing down the capital costs of first gas by half to what they were 12 months ago, to $450 million, which is huge," Bill Higgs, Ophir's chief operating officer said.

Schlumberger dropped out of a plan to be part of the construction of a floating LNG (FLNG) plant offshore Equatorial Guinea on April 29, 2016. The company entered into the Fortuna FLNG scheme in January 2016 under a non-binding heads of terms.

Ophir said they have been unable to finalize the deal on the terms and due to this, talks had ended, Reuters reports.

According to Equatorial Guinea's energy minister, Schlumberger backed down from talks with Ophir concerning the development of the Fortuna LNG project, because it wanted to control everything.

However, a final investment decision (FID) on Fortuna has been moved back to Q4 of 2016, with first gas scheduled for early 2020 from the initial mid-year and first gas in 2019.

Anita Fatunji