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AsiaElec GAS-FIRED THERMAL GENERATION AsiaElec
Kyushu Electric joins small-scale FLNG project
JAPAN
JAPAN’S Kyushu Electric Power has agreed to back a study on the use of oating lique ed nat- ural gas (FLNG) vessels at remote elds o shore Australia.
The study is being conducted by a con- sortium that is led by Transborders Energy and also includes TechnipFMC and Norway’s Add Energy. e group wants to tap stranded gas elds with between 500 bn cubic feet (cf) (14.16bn cubic metres) and 2 trillion cf (56.64bn cm) of reserves. It is aiming to complete both preliminary design work on small-scale FLNG as well as talks with eld owners by the end of this year.
Transborders Energy’s managing director, Daein Cha, said on June 16 that the partners hoped to enter rst production by mid-2026 at the earliest. He added that capital costs were pro- jected at around A$1.6bn ($1.1bn).
Cha added that Kyushu Electric’s joining the project could see it become an LNG o aker. He said the Japanese rm could also help the pro- ject secure access to low-cost financing from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).
“ at enhances our relative competitiveness and cost-e ectiveness when compared to other projects,” Cha said.
e group’s focus is similar to Norway-based Golar’s small-scale FLNG project in Cameroon. FLNG Hilli Episeyo, which completed its rst scheduled maintenance window in the final
quarter of 2018, has been operating without issue.
e 2.4m tonne per year Cameroon project is estimated to have cost about $1.2bn, a signi - cant discount to the $17bn estimated price tag of Royal Dutch Shell’s 3.6m tonne per year Prelude FLNG that started up o shore Australia’s north- west coast earlier this month.
Shell shipped the first LNG from Prelude project via the 490-metre long Valencia Knutsen LNG tanker on June 11 to customers in Asia. In addition to its LNG output, Prelude is also projected to produce 1.3m tonnes per year of condensate and 400,000 tonnes per year of LPG when it reaches full capacity.
Japanese interest in LNG has grown since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 prompted the government to shut down all of the country’s reactors over safety concerns. While the Japanese government has been seeking to bring its suspended nuclear power plants (NPPs) back online, safety concerns remain.
For example, Kyushu Electric said on June 16 that it would have to halt operations at its two reactors at the Sendai NPP in Kagoshima Prefec- ture in March 2020, owing to delays in building a facility designed to prepare for a terrorist attack.
In April, the Nuclear Regulation Authority ordered that reactors without these facilities to be shuttered by the March 2020 deadline. e two reactors were brought back online in August and October 2015.™
COAL
Indian miner Mahanadi aims to double coal output
INDIA
COAL India Limited (CIL) subsidiary Maha- nadi Coal elds Ltd (MCL) aims to double pro- duction to 300 million tonnes per year by 2026, mainly by upgrading rail infrastructure, as CIL continued to increase coal output to meet rising demand from industry.
e company said it would also adopt new technology, improve its planning methods and improve transport links with customers.
“We are into a long-term planning to ensure that mining operations remain smooth to regis- ter consistent growth. By 2025-26, the company is expected to achieve the 300 million tonne
target,” MCL managing director Bhola Nath Shukla said.
MCL, one of CIL’s two largest producing units along with South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), produced 144 million tonnes during the year to March 2019 and aims to raise this to 160 million tonnes in 2019-20.
MCL aims to produce at least 200 million tonnes of the 300-million tonne target at the Tal- cher coal elds, Shukla said.
e company also plans to improve coal stor- age facilities and coal evacuation procedures at its mines to drive output.
Week 24 18•June•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7