The Singapore LNG import terminal at Jurong Island, due to be completed next year, will add a fourth storage tank once its physical cargo trading hub theory is fully tested.
The terminal, which is more than 95 percent complete, will start operations with three tanks and 540,000 cubic metres of storage, as well as two berth areas for LNG carriers.
The additional tank will be completed in 2017, three years after commercial start-up, and bring total storage to 720,000 cubic metres.
The LNG terminal will support Singapore's energy diversification strategy, sending out regasified LNG for use in the island state currently receiving 80 percent of its natural gas by pipeline from Malaysia and Indonesia for power generation.
BG Group of the UK, one of the world's leading LNG portfolio players, is the appointed cargo aggregator for Singapore LNG Corp., the operating company.
The terminal will also be one of the first in the world to have been designed as an import-export terminal, together with commercial arrangements allowing multi-party use.
The Singapore terminal set-up is also aimed at encouraging the establishment of a physical cargo trading station allowing re-exports. The world's leading LNG players have set up Asia-Pacific LNG cargo trading offices there over the past few years for trading out of existing portfolios.
The engineering procurement and construction contractor of the facility is South Korea's Samsung C&T and the current workforce on site is more than 1,700 as the project nears completion.
The EPC company said that in the coming months, the focus will be on LNG tank hydrostatic testing, piping and cable installation and the completion of the sea water intake structure and buildings.
