Page 9 - GLNG Week 40
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GLNG AMERICAS GLNG
Kinder Morgan starts up first Elba Island unit
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
ELBA Liquefaction, a joint venture between Kinder Morgan and EIG Global Energy Part- ners, has brought the rst unit at its Elba Island LNG project in the US state of Georgia online. e start-up – which has been pushed back sev- eral times over the course of this year – comes a er a string of delays during the commission- ing process for the mid-scale liquefaction facility. Most recently, the plant had to be evacuated as Hurricane Dorian approached the Georgia coast.
e $2bn project will consist of 10 mid-scale units in total, each with a capacity of 0.25mn tonnes per year (tpy), for a total capacity of 2.5mn tpy. e operator said in an October 4 statement that start-up activities were underway on the second and third units, while the com- missioning of the fourth, h and sixth units was ongoing. Construction of the remaining units is largely complete, it added.
The Elba Island terminal’s units were designed using Royal Dutch Shell’s Moveable Modular Liquefaction System (MMLS) small- scale LNG technology. ey are designed for
quick assembly – mainly o site – and disassem- bly in response to market conditions, and mark the largest deployment of the MMLS design to date.
Shell is also the project’s sole o aker and is contracted to buy all of Elba Island LNG’s output over a 20-year period.
Elba Island LNG is the sixth and smallest LNG terminal to enter service in the US’ Lower 48 states in recent years. It has been estimated that it could take up to 100 days to ll a standard LNG cargo from a single Elba Island train.
The operator said it was earning around 70% of the expected total daily revenue of the liquefaction units now the first unit was in service.
Kinder Morgan owns 51% in the Elba Liq- uefaction joint venture, while EIG holds the remaining 49%. Under the joint venture agree- ment, Elba Liquefaction owns the liquefaction units and other ancillary equipment, while Kinder Morgan owns 100% of certain other facil- ities associated with the project.
ASIA
Malaysia receives first LNG cargo under TPA
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
MALAYSIA’S TNB Fuel Services (TNBF) has delivered its rst shipment of lique ed natural gas (LNG) to parent company Tenaga Nasional (TNB), testing the country’s third-party access (TPA) rules in the process.
The Malaysian Gas Association (MGA) revealed on October 9 that the LNG cargo had arrived at the Sungai Udang terminal in Malacca City on October 7. e terminal is owned and operated by state-owned Petronas.
TNB said on October 2 that it had agreed to supply 3.5tn British thermal units (Btu) of gas to the Tuanku Jaafar thermal power plant (TPP) in Port Dickson and Bridge TPP in Klang operated by TNB and a liate TNB Connaught respec- tively. e plants are anticipated to use the gas over a two-week period, with an average daily volume of 270,000 gigajoules (7.03mn cubic metres).
TNBF said the main objective of the cargo was to test TPA rules relating to state-run Pet- ronas Gas’ Sungai Udang terminal as well as its Peninsular Gas Utilisation (PGU) gas pipeline network. TNB noted that Petronas was the only company to have ever delivered LNG to the country’s power sector.
Malaysia’s gas market reforms aim to change this, however, with the government
implementing TPA in January 2017. e new rules not only allow third party suppliers to access the country’s gas infrastructure but also give industrial users the chance to buy LNG from any source.
“ is pioneering transaction also serves as a knowledge-sharing platform for all parties to gain experience for capacity building, and to provide feedback to all parties involved, espe- cially Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change and the Energy Commission, on the robustness and governance of the TPA system,” TNB CEO Amir Hamzah Azizan said.
e MGA welcomed the arrival of the cargo, saying it was a testament to market reforms. It added: “E orts must also be focused on increas- ing demand for gas within the country. Higher demand will create more opportunities for third parties to enter the market and spur investment to develop upstream indigenous gas that will fur- ther strengthen the long-term security of supply.”
TNBF secured its maiden LNG cargo from Shell Malaysia Trading under a master sales agreement signed on October 2. Azizan said the deal with Shell was a signal to other international gas suppliers that his company would be a regu- lar buyer.
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