Page 11 - NorthAmOil Week 09
P. 11
NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil
Sempra makes LNG progress
US GULF COAST
Train 2 at Cameron LNG has now started commercial operations.
US-BASED Sempra Energy is making progress at both its existing Cameron LNG export project in Louisiana and its planned Port Arthur facility in Texas.
The company’s Sempra LNG subsidiary said this week that Train 2 at Cameron LNG had begun commercial operations. This follows the start-up of Train 1 at the facility in August 2019 after some delays during construction. The company said Train 3 remained on track to begin LNG production in the second quarter of 2020, and to start commercial operations in the third quarter.
Cameron LNG is jointly owned by affiliates of Sempra LNG, Total, Mitsui & Co. and Japan LNG Investment. Sempra indirectly owns 50.2% of the project. Sempra’s share of full-year run-rate earnings from Phase 1 of the project – encom- passing the first three trains – are expected to be $400-450mn per year starting in 2021.
Separately, Sempra also announced this week that it had selected engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Bechtel as the contractor to build the Port Arthur LNG export terminal. The financial terms were not disclosed,
but the two companies described EPC contract as fixed-price in a joint statement.
The Port Arthur project will initially consist of two liquefaction trains, two LNG storage tanks, a marine berth and associated loading facilities and related infrastructure necessary to provide liquefaction services. It will have a nameplate capacity of around 13.5mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG. There is potential to expand the project at a later date.
“Port Arthur LNG plays an important role in Sempra’s goal of becoming one of North Amer- ica’s largest developers of liquefaction-export infrastructure projects and we look forward to continuing to move the project forward,” said Sempra’s chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Martin.
The company still needs to make a final investment decision (FID) on Port Arthur LNG, but has already signed an interim offtake agree- ment with Saudi Aramco and a definitive one with Poland’s PGNiG.
Sempra’s announcements come days after Martin said that the coronavirus outbreak had not affected the company’s negotiations with would-be customers.
Trafigura, Phillips 66 partner on deepwater oil port project
TEXAS
COMMODITY trader Trafigura and Phillips 66 announced on February 28 that they had formed a 50:50 joint venture to develop a deepwater port offshore Texas. As a result of the partnership, Trafigura is scrapping a separate oil export plan, the Texas Gulf Terminals project, which it had previously been seeking to develop in competi- tion with Phillips 66.
The joint venture will be known as Bluewater Texas Terminal, and its proposed port would be located around 21 nautical miles (39km) east of the entrance to the Port of Corpus Christi. The port would have two single point mooring buoys that will be capable of loading very large crude carriers (VLCCs).
There is currently a race underway to develop new facilities that can accommodate VLCCs, which can hold up to 2mn barrels of oil. US oil export infrastructure is limited because the country only lifted its ban on most crude exports in late 2015 in response to booming tight oil
production from shale plays, since when infra- structure developers have been racing to keep up with producers. The situation has become more urgent over recent months as major new oil pipelines from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast came online. And a number of companies are proposing competing oil export terminal facility projects, though some plans have already been scrapped and there is uncertainty over how long the others could take to receive regulatory approvals and be built.
In the case of the Bluewater terminal, which was first proposed in July 2019, the companies are hoping to make a final investment decision (FID) this year. The terminal will be capable of loading tankers at a rate of 40,000-80,000 barrels per hour, or about 16 VLCCs per month.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country’s crude exports averaged about 3.4mn barrels per day (bpd) over the course of February.
Week 09 05•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P11
