LNG

Aker Solutions of Norway has signed a contract with the Norwegian-based development company Crown LNG for front-end engineering and design for the proposed Kakinada regasification and import project proposed for offshore the East Coast of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and for all-year operations in the Bay of Bengal.

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company aiming to issue shares in an initial public offering to be priced on December 5, plans to be a supplier and trader of liquefied natural gas and its first customer is expected to be Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is set to start-up its second liquefied natural gas import facility with the deployment offshore the port of Cox’s Bazar of the floating storage and regasification vessel “Summit LNG”.

The second FSRU for the Asian nation is part of a project involving Singapore-based Summit Power International and Excelerate Energy of the US, owner and operator of the FSRU and also the provider of Bangladesh's first floating import facility.

The “Summit LNG” vessel is capable of regasifying 500 million cubic feet a day and has been charted from Excelerate for a period of 15 years.

The ship loaded its commissioning cargo at Ras Laffan in Qatar before heading for Bangladesh.

The Summit Group said the FSRU can handle around 3.75 million tonnes per annum of LNG and doubles the country’s import capacity after a first FSRU, the “Excellence”, was commissioned at Moheshkhali Island in August 2018 as the first Bangladesh import facility.

The Moheshkhali Island venture was co-developed by national energy company PetroBangla, the International Finance Corporation, part of World Bank Group, and Excelerate provided the FSRU.

The latest FSRU is a 138,000 cubic metres capacity vessel that was refitted at dry dock by the Nakilat-Keppel Offshore & Marine shipyard in Ras Laffan in Qatar for the Summit Group, whose Chairman is Muhammed Aziz Khan.

Summit operates 20 power plants in Bangladesh with an installed capacity of 1,941 megawatts comprising 20 percent of Bangladesh's total capacity in the private sector.

The power company is also developing the 583 MW gas-fired plant in the Bangladesh town of Meghnaghat, located about 20km south of the capital Dhaka and which will be the nation’s largest when it comes on line in March 2022.

“Summit is working towards achieving power and energy sufficiency in Bangladesh under the bold leadership of the government,” said Khan.

“We are pioneering the adaptation of cutting-edge technology for most economical, efficient and sustainable energy solutions to enable graduation to a developed country,” added the Summit Chairman.

Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan acquired a 25 percent stake in the Summit Group in August 2018 and is represented in the board.

General Electric of the US and Summit have also signed an accord opening the way for GE to potentially provide $50 million to Summit to be used for the development of power projects in Bangladesh.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) of India has awarded a contract to two US energy engineering companies, McDermott and the General Electric oil and gas services affiliate, for the development of a key block in the Krishna Godavari basin of the Bay of Bengal that will slightly ease the gas crisis on the East Coast where no LNG import facilities operate.

Bangladesh is now a liquefied natural gas importer after a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) provided by Excelerate Energy of the US arrived at the Asian nation’s Moheshkhali Island on the Bay of Bengal and unloaded a commissioning cargo supplied by Qatar.