Page 12 - GLNG Week 01 2021

GLNG AMERICAS GLNG

US regulators approve request to

convert Kenai LNG plant to imports

PROJECTS & THE US Federal Energy Regulatory Commis- its boil-off gas management system to deliver
COMPANIES sion (FERC) approved a proposal in the second imported gas to the adjacent Kenai refinery.
half of December to convert the mothballed The FERC has given the company two years to
Kenai LNG export facility in Alaska to imports put the project into service. Trans-Foreland had
on a limited basis. initially hoped to import its first LNG cargo in
The plan is being proposed by Trans-Foreland August 2020, but some delays were encountered
Pipeline, a unit of Marathon Petroleum, which during the regulatory approval process.
acquired the LNG facility in Nikiski, on the The conversion project is notable because it
Kenai Peninsula, when it took over Andeavor in comes as other developers in the US are building
October 2018. Andeavor, in turn, had acquired liquefaction and export capacity – primarily on
the plant from ConocoPhillips, which moth- the Gulf Coast, but there are also two proposals
balled the facility in 2015. to build new LNG export facilities in Alaska.
Prior to this, Kenai LNG had been the sole Indeed, a number of developers have already
facility exporting the super-chilled fuel from the converted existing LNG import facilities in the
US, before the liquefaction boom began on the Lower 48 states to exports, or are in the process
Gulf Coast in 2016. Nearly all of the LNG from of doing so.
Kenai, which operated from 1969 until 2015, was Marathon said last year that it was still devel-
sold to Japan. oping full-scale plans for Kenai LNG, but wanted
Trans-Foreland is proposing to import up to use the plant to “optimise” its Kenai refinery
to four tankers’ worth of LNG per year and use operations in the meantime.™

AUSTRAL ASIA

Shell agrees to sell down stake

in QCLNG common facilities

INVESTMENT ROYAL Dutch Shell announced on Decem- The transaction will have no impact on the
ber 21 that it had agreed to sell a 26.25% stake ownership structure of either QGC – a joint
in the Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) venture that supplies gas to both the LNG plant
common facilities to Global Infrastructure and the domestic market as well as operating the
Partners Australia. The stake will be sold for LNG facility – or to QCLNG. Shell will remain
$2.5bn, in a deal anticipated to close in the the operator and majority interest holder in
first half of 2021. QGC, while China National Offshore Oil Corp.
Global Infrastructure Partners is an inde- (CNOOC) will retain a 50% equity in Train 1 of
pendent infrastructure fund manager that the LNG terminal and Tokyo Gas will continue
makes equity and debt investments in infra- to own a 2.5% stake in Train 2.
structure assets and businesses. The LNG terminal has a capacity of 8.5mn
Shell currently owns 100% of the QCLNG tonnes per year (tpy) and is one of several Aus-
common facilities, as well as a 73.75% interest tralian LNG projects in which Shell owns an
in the overall QCLNG project. The super-ma- interest.
jor said the sale would bring its interest in the In its statement, Shell noted natural gas was a
common facilities into alignment with its stake “core component” of its strategy to provide more
in the overall project as it works to sell non-core and cleaner energy owing to “the advantages it
assets and high-grade and simplify its portfolio. offers as a complement to renewable energy and
It will continue to be the operator of the com- as the cleanest burning hydrocarbon”. This sig-
mon facilities, which include LNG storage tanks, nals its ongoing commitment to both natural gas
jetties and operations infrastructure that service and LNG, even as the super-major sheds non-
QCLNG’s liquefaction trains. core gas assets.™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 08•January•2020