LNG

Glenfarne has warned Alaska’s proposed gasline tax package could still leave the $13.2–16.9 billion pipeline segment of the Alaska LNG project without a viable path to completion, undermining financing just as the project seeks to take FID.

Glenfarne Group has signed a preliminary 30-year gas supply pact with ConocoPhillips, securing sufficient volumes for Phase 1 financial close on the Alaska LNG project.

Glenfarne has signed a definitive agreement to supply 1 mtpa of LNG to the South Korean trading house POSCO International over 20 years from its planned 20 mtpa Alaska LNG project, the only federally authorized LNG export project on the U.S. Pacific Coast.

Saipem, the Italian engineer for LNG, oil and pipeline gas subsea contracts, has been chosen to ensure the supervision and any subsea intervention services for the GreenStream gas pipeline linking Libya to Italy and the longest and deepest pipeline ever laid in the Mediterranean Sea.

GreenStream BV, a joint venture comprising Italian oil and gas major Eni and the Libyan National Oil Corporation, awarded the work to Saipem.

The GreenStream system conveys natural gas from coastal facilities at Mellitah in Libya to Gela on the Italian island of Sicily. 

Libya is a former LNG exporter but the Marsa el Brega LNG export plant was destroyed during the years of conflict in the North African nation.

The LNG facility was the third to start operations in 1970, after Alaska and Algeria, and exported 3.2 million tonnes per annum from four liquefaction Trains.

As part of the broader and revived Western Libyan Gas Project, GreenStream connects the Mellitah Compression Station, on the Libyan coast, with the receiving terminal in Gela in Sicily where Libyan gas arrives from two fields.

Libyan gas fields

The first gas field, Bahr Essalam, is offshore the Libyan coast and the second, the Wafa gas field, is located in the Libyan desert near the border with Algeria.

The Libya-Italy Mediterranean pipeline has a diameter of 32-inches and is around 520 kilometres (323 miles) long.

GreenStream crosses points near Malta and with waters depths reaching 1,127 metres.

The Gas Compression Station at Mellitah (MGCS) is beside the Gas Treatment Plant that compresses the gas to be exported and up to the pressure required for the entering the Italian Gas Transport Network.

Asset integrity

The latest contract awarded by GreenStream to Saipem is renewing a work programme in force since 2008 that included asset integrity, inspection, maintenance and emergency pipeline services.

“The activities will be managed by Saipem’s center of excellence for robotics, underwater technologies and services, and executed in coordination with the Saipem Engineering Hub located in Fano in Italy,” Saipem added.

“The scope of work streamlines the integrated management of survey data and critical spares, the provision of specialized engineering services related to asset integrity and readiness services for repair interventions in case of a wide range of damage scenarios,” Milan-based Saipem added.

Specifically, repair interventions in case of damage will be performed via a remotely operated repair system and qualified to operate in water depths of up to 2,200 metres.

“With this award Saipem will contribute to managing the integrity of a fundamental underwater infrastructure for the Italian energy supply system,” the company added.

“It also consolidates the long-term cooperation between Saipem and GreenStream BV, which in 2002 awarded the company a contract for the pipelaying of the said pipeline, a project thanks to which Saipem achieved the record for the deepest pipe-laying with anchors,” Saipem concluded.

The US Department of Energy has given final approval after permit processes lasting more than a decade of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. LNG export project to supply Asian nations with the state’s abundant North Slope gas.

The US Bureau of Land Management issued an approval for a scaled-back version of a ConocoPhillips $7 billion oil and gas drilling project in Alaska, though also banned future energy activities on huge tracts of land in the state though the Alaska LNG export project is still expected to be given a full go-ahead soon.

The second foreign trip of the premiership of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has taken place to Libya and has resulted in a major natural gas deal with the Libyans who were former LNG exporters from a plant destroyed during years of conflict.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has just concluded a trade mission to Japan where he met executives of leading energy companies and utilities as well as government ministries to discuss Japanese companies procuring long-term Alaskan LNG supplies.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has just concluded a trade mission to Japan where he met executives of leading energy companies and utilities as well as government ministries about the Japanese companies procuring long-term Alaskan LNG supplies.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy says a new analysis of the Alaska LNG export project by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie comes up with gas pricing that would by lower than some other US projects and financing could be underpinned by Federal loan guarantees offered by President Joe Biden’s $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Bill.