Kinder Morgan steps forward with Gulf LNG

Kinder Morgan units, Gulf LNG Liquefaction Company and Gulf LNG Energy, have filed an application with FERC requesting authority to construct and operate new natural gas liquefaction and export facilities at GLE’s existing regasification terminal located in Jackson County, Mississippi, near Pascagoula. 

Additionally, Gulf LNG Pipeline notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that minor modifications will be made to the existing pipeline facilities that currently interconnect with the terminal under GLP’s blanket authorization from the FERC. The applicants have requested that the FERC grant authorization of the requests no later than June 17, 2016, the joint statement reveals.

Subject to obtaining sufficient long-term customer commitments, anticipated capital expenditures for the project at full development total approximately $8 billion. Anticipated capital for a single LNG train in phase one totals approximately $5 billion and approximately $3 billion for a second train in phase two. In service for phase one is anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021 for phase two.

The project has already received U.S. Department of Energy Free Trade Agreement export authority and non-FTA authority is pending. On June 15, 2012, GLLC received approval from the DOE to export up to 11.5 million tons per annum of LNG. In August 2012, GLLC submitted a filing to the DOE seeking approval to export up to the same volume of LNG to non-FTA countries, Kinder Morgan said.

The project will include the installation of natural gas pre-treatment, liquefaction and export facilities at the terminal with a total peak capacity of up to 11.5 MTPA. The average expected send-out rate for the proposed facility will be approximately 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of LNG. These facilities will allow the terminal to liquefy domestic natural gas delivered by pipeline, store the LNG in the terminal’s existing LNG storage tanks and load it into LNG vessels via the terminal’s existing marine jetty. The terminal will retain its current capability to receive, store, regasify and deliver natural gas into the interstate pipeline system as originally constructed, thereby making the Gulf LNG Terminal bi-directional.

The project is divided into two phases. Phase one will consist of a single liquefaction train expected to have a base LNG production capacity of approximately 5 MTPA. The LNG produced by this train will be stored in the terminal’s two existing LNG storage tanks, which have a combined capacity of 320,000 cubic meters (equivalent to 6.6 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas). The stored LNG will then be loaded onto ships berthed at the existing dock facility.

Phase two will consist of a second liquefaction train identical in size to the first train, providing a total project base level liquefaction capacity of 10 MTPA, which GLLC expects could be exceeded by more than 10 percent once the project is in operation.

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Image: Kinder Morgan