Canada’s Omers to buy stake in GNL Quintero

Borealis Infrastructure, the infrastructure investment manager of Omers, signed an agreement to acquire a 34.6 percent stake in GNL Quintero.

Remaining shareholders in the Chilean LNG regasification facility include Spain’s Enagás, Chilean state-owned energy company, Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP).

As part of the transaction, Omers agreed to grant Enagás a 12-month call option for 5 percent of its shares, according to company’s statement.

Located 160 km northwest of Santiago, Chile, GNL Quintero is the southern hemisphere’s first land-based terminal dedicated to the receiving, unloading, storage and regasification of up to 15 million cubic meters per day of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the statement reads.

GNL Quintero initiated operations in 2009 serving practically 100 percent of the gas demand in central Chile, where 92 percent of the population lives and 78 percent of the country’s GDP is produced.

Since it commenced operations, it has served 9 gas-fired power plants, two refineries, 450 industries, over 700,000 commercial and residential customers, and 7,000 commercial vehicles, Omers said.

As well, the terminal has dispatched over 40,000 LNG tanker trucks to serve customers that are not connected to the pipeline grid, through satellite regasification units that are located up to 1,000 km away from the facility.

Starting in 2016, GNLQ’s production also included natural gas volumes that were transported to Argentina by pipeline over the Andes Mountains during the winter months.  The facility has an LNG tanker docking facility, three storage tanks, four vaporizers and a four-bay truck loading station.