US developer Canatxx has won approval from local planning authorities for a massive new UK LNG import terminal at Anglesey, an island off the north coast of Wales, the company said Thursday.
The facility will have the capacity to land and regasify 3 Bcf/day (85 million cubic meters/day) and will cost GBP330 million ($675 million), Canatxx said. UK gas demand reaches up to 400 million cu m/day in the winter.
The company said it has begun discussions with potential partners and customers. It would likely need support from a major upstream LNG supplier and also from a downstream gas retailer. Canatxx itself is a privately owned US developer set up in 1988 that operates a gas pumping station in the US and is actively involved in developing new energy projects.
The terminal is innovative because instead of storing lots of gas in onshore tanks and regasifying it slowly it will hold very little LNG onshore, instead using massive vaporizers to regasify the LNG as it arrives.
Tankers would dock at an offshore buoy and feed in LNG through a pipeline to shore. Most LNG would be regasified instantly, using open rack vaporizers adapted from those used by the chemical plant that used to be based on Canatxx's Amlwch site. The old Octel works heated seawater to extract bromine from the Irish Sea. Now the heaters could be used to heat up supercooled LNG.
Only two 7,000 cubic meter LNG capacity storage tanks would be on shore, enough to hold small volumes of LNG for keeping equipment at the right temperature. That compares to the UK's only existing active LNG import terminal, the Isle of Grain in Kent, where operator National Grid has a tank of 200,000 cu m LNG in size and is building several more tanks.
Canatxx bought the Octel works site after it was shut in January 2004, with former owner Great Lakes moving its bromine sourcing to the Dead Sea. Demolition of the remaining Octel buildings is now set to begin in spring 2008 and it is hoped, subject to further planning consents, that construction of the new LNG reception facilities will begin in spring 2009 with the site being in operation in 2012.
Canatxx had hoped to integrate the LNG terminal with a planned salt cavern gas storage facility at Fleetwood in Lancashire. But on October 16, 2007, following a planning inquiry, the central government rejected planning permission for the storage facility.
Under that plan gas would have gone from the LNG terminal through a subsea pipe across from Anglesey to Lancashire where it could have fed into the storage. Canatxx still plans to feed gas in to Lancashire, through a subsea pipe. Gas would be transported by a new 114 km long pipeline, at a flow rate of up to 3 Bcf/ and 85 bar, the company said. It would connect into the national transmission system near Nateby, north of Preston, Lancashire.
The next stage of the project is to apply for authorization of the offshore platform and pipework. "This approval is for the land based regasification facility," Canatxx said. "The offshore components of the project will be subject to further scrutiny."
However, offshore unloading would not be new in the area. In the 1960s Shell was finding it difficult to bring enough oil into its Stanlow, Cheshire refinery. It built a facility off Anglesey and starting in 1974 crude was pumped from tankers offshore to Amlwch, then across Anglesey and along the north coast of Wales to Stanlow in Cheshire. This went on almost 20 years.
The company is seeking to unload up to three tankers a week and estimates that a tanker could be unloaded in 24 hours. Although the company is thought to be considering standard sized LNG tankers of up to 150,000 cu m for deliveries, the offshore unloading would take place in relatively deep waters which might be able to accommodate larger vessels were that desired.
A standard 150,000 cu m LNG tanker is equivalent to about 85 million cu m of regasified gas. Three such tankers per week would equal up to 13 billion cubic meters/year of gas.
The UK already has--since July 2005--the 4.4 Bcm/year Grain LNG, operated by National Grid. This is being expanded in two phases to reach 20 Bcm/year by 2010/11. In South Wales ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum will next year bring on the 10.5 Bcm/year South Hook terminal, which could reach 21 Bcm/year in a second phase. And BG Group/Petronas/4Gas will bring on next year in the same place the 6 Bcm/year Dragon LNG. Other terminals have also been suggested around the UK, although since Centrica/Calor Gas's Canvey Island, Essex terminal was rejected, Canatxx is the only new project to actually obtain planning permission.
The UK is importing more gas as its North Sea reserves decline. In 2003 the UK was self sufficient in gas but by 2015 it could be importing up to 80% of its 100 Bcm/year needs, according to system operator National Grid.
The name Canatxx is derived from Canada and Texas, two places connected to owners of the company, whose US office is in Houston.
The facility will have the capacity to land and regasify 3 Bcf/day (85 million cubic meters/day) and will cost GBP330 million ($675 million), Canatxx said. UK gas demand reaches up to 400 million cu m/day in the winter.
The company said it has begun discussions with potential partners and customers. It would likely need support from a major upstream LNG supplier and also from a downstream gas retailer. Canatxx itself is a privately owned US developer set up in 1988 that operates a gas pumping station in the US and is actively involved in developing new energy projects.
The terminal is innovative because instead of storing lots of gas in onshore tanks and regasifying it slowly it will hold very little LNG onshore, instead using massive vaporizers to regasify the LNG as it arrives.
Tankers would dock at an offshore buoy and feed in LNG through a pipeline to shore. Most LNG would be regasified instantly, using open rack vaporizers adapted from those used by the chemical plant that used to be based on Canatxx's Amlwch site. The old Octel works heated seawater to extract bromine from the Irish Sea. Now the heaters could be used to heat up supercooled LNG.
Only two 7,000 cubic meter LNG capacity storage tanks would be on shore, enough to hold small volumes of LNG for keeping equipment at the right temperature. That compares to the UK's only existing active LNG import terminal, the Isle of Grain in Kent, where operator National Grid has a tank of 200,000 cu m LNG in size and is building several more tanks.
Canatxx bought the Octel works site after it was shut in January 2004, with former owner Great Lakes moving its bromine sourcing to the Dead Sea. Demolition of the remaining Octel buildings is now set to begin in spring 2008 and it is hoped, subject to further planning consents, that construction of the new LNG reception facilities will begin in spring 2009 with the site being in operation in 2012.
Canatxx had hoped to integrate the LNG terminal with a planned salt cavern gas storage facility at Fleetwood in Lancashire. But on October 16, 2007, following a planning inquiry, the central government rejected planning permission for the storage facility.
Under that plan gas would have gone from the LNG terminal through a subsea pipe across from Anglesey to Lancashire where it could have fed into the storage. Canatxx still plans to feed gas in to Lancashire, through a subsea pipe. Gas would be transported by a new 114 km long pipeline, at a flow rate of up to 3 Bcf/ and 85 bar, the company said. It would connect into the national transmission system near Nateby, north of Preston, Lancashire.
The next stage of the project is to apply for authorization of the offshore platform and pipework. "This approval is for the land based regasification facility," Canatxx said. "The offshore components of the project will be subject to further scrutiny."
However, offshore unloading would not be new in the area. In the 1960s Shell was finding it difficult to bring enough oil into its Stanlow, Cheshire refinery. It built a facility off Anglesey and starting in 1974 crude was pumped from tankers offshore to Amlwch, then across Anglesey and along the north coast of Wales to Stanlow in Cheshire. This went on almost 20 years.
The company is seeking to unload up to three tankers a week and estimates that a tanker could be unloaded in 24 hours. Although the company is thought to be considering standard sized LNG tankers of up to 150,000 cu m for deliveries, the offshore unloading would take place in relatively deep waters which might be able to accommodate larger vessels were that desired.
A standard 150,000 cu m LNG tanker is equivalent to about 85 million cu m of regasified gas. Three such tankers per week would equal up to 13 billion cubic meters/year of gas.
The UK already has--since July 2005--the 4.4 Bcm/year Grain LNG, operated by National Grid. This is being expanded in two phases to reach 20 Bcm/year by 2010/11. In South Wales ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum will next year bring on the 10.5 Bcm/year South Hook terminal, which could reach 21 Bcm/year in a second phase. And BG Group/Petronas/4Gas will bring on next year in the same place the 6 Bcm/year Dragon LNG. Other terminals have also been suggested around the UK, although since Centrica/Calor Gas's Canvey Island, Essex terminal was rejected, Canatxx is the only new project to actually obtain planning permission.
The UK is importing more gas as its North Sea reserves decline. In 2003 the UK was self sufficient in gas but by 2015 it could be importing up to 80% of its 100 Bcm/year needs, according to system operator National Grid.
The name Canatxx is derived from Canada and Texas, two places connected to owners of the company, whose US office is in Houston.
