Marathon says restarts Eq. Guinea LNG production
MALABO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Marathon Oil (MRO.N) has restarted production at its new liquefied natural gas plant in Equatorial Guinea after repairs to the 3.4 million tonne a year plant were completed, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
"Repairs have been completed and the plant is back online and manufacturing LNG as of last week," Marathon spokeswoman Lee Warren told Reuters.
Marathon officials said in mid-October that production from the $1.5 billion plant, on the northwest side of Bioko Island, had been shut down.
Marathon made the first gas shipment in May under a 17-year deal with BG (BG.L) Gas Marketing LTD (BG) to supply it with all the production from the plant's first production train.
BG has LNG facilities in the United States and is part of a consortium building a plant in Britain. Marathon said the outage was common for a facility ramping up to full production.
Marathon owns a 60 percent stake in the West African country's first liquefaction unit, with 25 percent owned by national gas company Sonagas and the remainder in the hands of Japanese investors.
Equatorial Guinea aims to start work soon on the construction of a second production train to process gas from Nigeria and Cameroon. Officials say land to build the train has already been purchases and a tender for the building work is expected to open soon. (Reporting by Daniel Flynn)
