Louisiana Terminal Gets its First LNG Shipment (6/23/09)

Houston Chronicle

By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
June 23, 2009, 12:40AM

Sempra Energy received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas at its new terminal near Lake Charles, La., on Sunday, making it the fourth LNG terminal opened in the U.S. in a little over a year.

The 945-foot-long tanker British Diamond carried the approximately 4.8 million cubic feet of LNG from a liquefaction plant in Trinidad. A second shipment is expected later this month as part of the initial “cool-down” of the $900 million facility.

Analysts are expecting a surge in LNG imports into the U.S. this year despite low natural gas prices and ample stockpiles that have followed an increase in domestic production and a lack of demand due to the slowed economy.

The surge is expected because of the startup of a number of massive natural gas liquefaction projects overseas where production costs are well below current U.S. gas prices.

One sign of the surge is Chevron’s announcement this month it signed an LNG supply agreement with Qatar’s RasGas for delivery through Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass, La., terminal in July.

In April 2008, Houston-based Cheniere took its first shipment of LNG at Sabine Pass, as did the Freeport LNG Terminal on Quintana Island, about 60 miles south of Houston. The Woodlands-based Excelerate Energy opened a floating terminal off Louisiana in 2005 and another off Massachusetts last year.

Exxon Mobil’s Golden Pass LNG terminal just north of Sabine Pass was scheduled to open this year, but that has been delayed because of heavy damage during Hurricane Ike.

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Permalink Reply by JHH on June 23, 2009 at 9:49
It does the heart good to see MORE LNG come into this country. I give up!
jhh
Permalink Reply by Pipeliner on June 23, 2009 at 10:48
JHH,

Qatar to supply 30% of world's LNG needs.

http://www.lngpedia.com/qatar-to-supply-30-of-worlds-lng-needs/

Exxon-Mobil jointly owns, with Qatar Petroleum, the Golden Pass LNG terminal in Louisiana.
Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 23, 2009 at 11:01
Pipeliner, actually the Golden Pass LNG Terminal is now jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Permalink Reply by Martin on June 23, 2009 at 17:54
Read a recent report in a financial paper that Russia intends to ship 20 million tons of LNG to the USA this year.
Oh joy! What does the 20 mtons translate to in cubic feet of LNG? What would that translate to in mmcf? There was speculation in the article that the LNG imports to the USA were in part, for storage to be re-exported later to South America... Does that make sense to anyone? Can the terminals store significant amounts of LNG for future export?
Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 23, 2009 at 18:12
Martin, the paper must have botched the numbers as Gazprom has access to LNG volumes that are only a fraction of that amount. In addition they only have very limited access to LNG terminal capacity that would allow delivery to the US market. To date Gazprom has delivered zero LNG volume to the US.
Permalink Reply by Martin on June 23, 2009 at 18:40
Les B. --
Thanks for the information. The article in question covered the opening of the Qatar LNG terminal in Britain late this spring. There was the observation that since England now had two ( at least) NG pipe lines from Europe that the terminal may not be be profitable for 8 to 10 years. Any idea how many tons an LNG tanker such as the British Diamond (above) can deliver? Still curious about the conversion factors and the potential for storage and reshipping of LNG. Any information on that?
Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 23, 2009 at 18:54
Martin, a typical cargo on the British Diamond would be ~ 58,660 tonnes of LNG which is about 2,950 MMscf of equivalent natural gas.

Receipt, storage & redelivery (reloading) LNG has a low potential as the economices would be very problematic.
Permalink Reply by sesport on June 23, 2009 at 19:04
Les - I'm now stuck in Natch, the you-know-who's found summer co-eds! They've slipped their boats into the Cane, too. It's a summer break floatilla, and I'm not sure but this time it might be out of the Sheriff's line of duty. May have to call "Wildlife" and fisheries.

Will get back with ya' when I know more. :0P se(wearing down)sport
Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 24, 2009 at 2:40
Sesport, I know - they must be headed to Melrose Plantation for some mint julips.

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