Chile: ENAP Opens Pemuco LNG Plant

In the presence of the Biminister of Mining and Energy and the Chairman of the Board of ENAP, Laurence Golborne Riveros, national, regional and local authorities, and executives of ENAP and of various industrial and energy-sector companies, the liquefied natural gas regasification plant, the terminal of Chile’s first virtual gas pipeline, was inaugurated Thursday.

This is located at Km 442 on Route 5 South, in the locality of Pemuco in the Eighth Region.

In a first stage, the project involves transporting 1,000 m3 of liquefied natural gas from the LNG terminal in Quintero, using 25 double-skin tanker trucks built in Spain and completely hermetic and safe. The fuel will be regasified at the Pemuco plant and re-injected through the Pacífico pipeline to ENAP’s Bío Bío refinery for its production purposes.

The initial capacity of the plant is 600,000 cubic meters a day of natural gas and, in a second stage, the volume could rise to 1,200,000 cubic meters a day, depending on demand in the region.

The total cost of the project was US$ 45 million, of which US$ 18 million related to the truck-loading yard at the Quintero LNG terminal. The trucks carrying the LNG at -160° C comply with the highest safety standards in the world.
The transportation of LNG by tanker trucks is unheard of in Latin America and, of course, in Chile, although it is a widely-used method in Europe and the United States when supplying areas where natural-gas demand does not justify the construction of a gas pipeline.

At the inauguration of the Pemuco regasification plant and virtual gas pipeline, Biminister Laurence Golborne said that “the arrival of natural gas to the south of Chile is very important because this national project will provide energy security to the region of Biobío and contribute to the development of this important industrial zone, which is one of the principal concerns of the government of President Sebastián Piñera and the board of ENAP which I preside”.

We are today marking an event of great importance, which is related to the competitiveness of the region. We can today say that with this new project of ENAP, natural  gas is back in Biobío”, said the biminister.

He stressed that “natural gas is a cleaner energy that is friendly with the environment, a central aspect of the energy program that we encourage as government and for which we have set ourselves the target of having 20% renewable energies as soon as possible”.

He congratulated the executives, professionals and workers of ENAP “because you have again shown that in this company we have top-level engineering and the skills for meeting the big challenges, and that is the great work we have pending for ENAP: to develop a world-class company in the field of energy”.

The chief executive of ENAP, Rodrigo Azócar, said that “for ENAP’s workers and executives, the start-up of this pioneering plant in Chile is one of pride because our company was capable of leading the LNG mega-project in Quintero, a mission entrusted to ENAP in 2004 to realize a public-private partnership that gave Chile security in the supply of natural gas and contributed to the diversification of the energy matrix. Today, we offer the regasification plant and virtual gas pipeline which ratifies ENAP’s commitment with regional development and decentralization”.

In Chile and South America, ENAP has been a pioneer in the development of projects using liquefied natural gas and we are very satisfied at having completed this regasification plant in Pemuco, as it is a fair recognition of the efforts that our company’s workers, professionals and executives have made to carry out this valuable initiative”, said Rodrigo Azócar.

The Pemuco regasification plant has 4 truck unloading stations which are connected to 4 double-wall storage tanks of 200 m3 and 2 batteries of 10 vaporizers each. These tanks will function alternately to permit the return of the LNG to its gaseous state and then inject it into the Pacífico pipeline which will take it to ENAP’s Bío Bío refinery and thus reduce its operating costs.

The plant was built by the firm Pipesa and the equipment was acquired by the Spanish company Ros Roca Crio Energy Indox, with vast experience in the construction of this kind of regaification plant. Its location ensures a safe connection with the existing distribution pipelines in the Eighth Region, using fast highways for the movement of the trucks and so avoiding their circulation through populated areas.

The virtual gas pipeline consists of the constant transport of the fuel by a fleet of 25 cryogenic tanker trucks (with hermetic tanks) between Quintero and Pemuco. This consists of a journey of 600 kilometers each way, which it is estimated that a truck will complete in 26 hours.

Advantages and characteristics of natural gas

Liquefied natural gas is the liquid form of natural gas which is extracted from underground and which is used as energy in various areas of modern life, from turning a turbine for generating electricity to fuel for heating homes and cooking.

It is natural gas extracted from fields on land or at sea, which is cooled until reaching its liquid state. This conversion to liquefied gas reduces its volume by 600 times, thus facilitating its shipment in tankers and its storage prior to being regasified and delivered to the markets. Weighing close to 45% of the weight of water, LNG is odorless, colorless and not corrosive or toxic.

Undoubtedly, natural gas offers many benefits, but the principal one is that it is a clean fuel that is more friendly with the environment. In fact its combustion is classified globally as the cleanest among traditional industrial fuels and one of its greatest advantages is the low combustion emissions, as its simpler molecule structure helps it burn better.

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Source: ENAP, June 30, 2011;