France: Montoir LNG Renovation Almost Complete

Launched in 2009, the renovation of Elengy’s Montoir-de-Bretagne LNG terminal is nearing completion. The project will safely and reliably extend the use of the terminal until at least 2035, in line with the commercial commitments made to its customers. It will also ensure the terminal can adapt to changes in the global LNG carrier fleet by being compatible with Q-Flex and Q-Max vessels, to changes in the market and to expanding customer requirements by offering them new services and greater flexibility.

Positive assessment

The project – costing a total of €165 million – covered the terminal’s three main functions: unloading, LNG storage and regasification, and utilities networks. The work lasted five years and was programmed in such a way as to ensure the terminal could maintain the production capacity needed to meet its contractual commitments.

Elengy signed a partnership agreement with CARENE (Saint-Nazaire and Estuary Urban Community) to promote occupational integration measures in connection with terminal renovation contracts. By late 2013, 900,000 working hours had been spent on the site by more than 40 different companies involved in such fields as civil engineering, electricity, automation, and all specialities linked to pipework and LNG facilities. Some thirty individuals working under occupational integration contracts were involved in the project.

Industrial synergies were also developed, specifically with GDF SUEZ Thermique France, a combined-cycle power station next to the terminal, contributing to the environmental effectiveness of both sites. Water taken from the Loire river and heated by the power station is recovered in order to supply the regasifiers used to reheat the LNG which is then transformed back into its gaseous state.

New services for greater flexibility

Elengy has harnessed the terminal renovation project to optimise the industrial facility and improve operational performance while expanding its catalogue of offerings by launching:

• a ship reloading service in 2012;
• a transshipment service in 2013 thanks to the terminal’s two jetties (an immediate hit);
• a tanker truck loading service in the summer of 2013, with the first loading operations performed in September;
• and in the future, a reloading service on barges or micro-tankers in order to supply an LNG as fuel logistics for shipping industry.

Speaking to all of the stakeholders involved in the terminal renovation programme who gathered together on 27 November in the presence of Emmanuel Bordeau, the sub-prefect of Saint-Nazaire, Elengy CEO Jean-Marc Guyot said: “Personnel from Elengy and its public and private partners, completed this project to renovate and upgrade the terminal. They did so successfully and with a view to encouraging local employment. The terminal, now ready for its transformation into a logistics hub, is able to meet the challenging flexibility requirements of the LNG industry.”

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LNG World News Staff, November 28, 2013; Image: Elengy