Page 9 - GLNG Week 01

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Peru LNG reports exports down again in December
PERFORMANCE
PERU LNG, the operator of a gas liquefaction plant and export terminal in Pampa Melchorita, reported that its export volumes had declined year on year in the last month of 2019.
Data published earlier this week by the national oil company (NOC) Perupetro show that Peru LNG loaded five vessels with 824,434 cubic metres of LNG in December. This marked an 11% decline on loadings in the same month of 2018, when the group exported some 926,698 cubic metres of LNG.
Nevertheless, total export volumes were up down month on month. According to previously released data, Peru LNG loaded four vessels with 635,758 cubic metres of LNG in November 2019. As a result, exports rose by about 29.7% on the previous month’s level.
Peru LNG has loaded and delivered a total of 552 cargoes of LNG since its launch in June 2010. Of the five cargoes launched in December 2019, one went to Japan, two went to China and another two were dispatched to South Korea.
The Peru LNG consortium, which the US company Hunt Oil founded with three partners, spent $3.8bn on building the Pampa Melchorita facility. The complex includes a 4.45mn tonne per year (tpy) gas liquefaction plant constructed by Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI), as well as a marine terminal built by a consortium known as CDB. (This group includes Italy’s Saipem, Lux- embourg’s Jan de Nul and Brazil’s Odebrecht.)
The Pampa Melchorita complex also controls a storage depot outfitted with two 130,000 cubic metre tanks and a 34-inch (860-mm) natural gas pipeline. The latter handles gas supplies from fields operated by Spain’s Repsol and Argentina’s NOC YPF in the Cusco region. The link follows a 408-km path from Chiquintirca, a town in the Ayacucho region, to the LNG plant.
Equity in the Peru LNG project is split between Hunt Oil, with 50%; SK Energy (South Korea), with 20%; Royal Dutch Shell (UK-Netherlands), with 20%, and Marubeni (Japan), with 10%.™
Port Arthur LNG receives Aramco boost
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
SUBSIDIARIES of Sempra Energy and Saudi Aramco signed an interim project participa- tion agreement (IPPA) this week that takes the proposed Port Arthur LNG project in Texas one stepclosertoafinalinvestmentdecision(FID). The IPAA between Sempra LNG and Aramco Services follows a heads of agreement (HoA) signed by the two subsidiaries in May 2019. The HoA anticipated the finalisation of a 20-year deal for the purchase of 5mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG from Port Arthur LNG by Aramco, as well as a 25% equity investment in the project.
Details of the new IPAA were not immedi- ately available, but the deal illustrates Aramco’s strategy of expanding its natural gas operations.
“The global demand growth for LNG is expected to continue in the coming years, and we see significant opportunities in this market,” Aramco’s president and CEO, Amin Nasser, said. “This agreement with Sempra Energy is another step forward for Saudi Aramco’s long-term gas strategy, and towards becoming the global lead- ing integrated energy and chemicals company,” he added.
Sempra’s chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Martin, welcomed the agreement as “a reflection of the growing alignment between our companies’ interest in the overall success of the Port Arthur LNGproject”.
Sempra was given approval by the US Fed- eral Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to proceed with construction of Port Arthur LNG in April 2019. The federal Department of Energy (DoE) subsequently authorised the project to sell LNG to countries that do not have a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US in May.
The first phase of the project will involve two LNG trains and up to three storage tanks, with export capacity of 11mn tpy. Sempra noted this week that it had recently initiated the FERC pre-filing review for a subsequent potential expansion. If approved, the expansion would involve two additional liquefaction trains, bring- ing the plant’s total export capacity to around 22mn tpy of LNG.
An FID on the project had been anticipated in 2019 but was pushed back, and may now come in the first half of 2020.™
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