LNG

March 28 (LNGJ) - Japan’s future LNG needs may be further affected by moves to bring the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear facility in central Japan, one of the largest in the world by output, back on line. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Holdings, the publicly listed company and plant operator majority-owned by the Government of Japan, said it had submitted a proposal to deliver nuclear fuel to the No. 7 reactor at its idled Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant as early as April 15.

   JERA Co. Inc., Japan’s largest LNG importer, is 50-percent owned by TEPCO and another 50 percent stake in JERA is held by Chubu Electric Power. TEPCO said it was seeking approval for the fuel plan from the Nuclear Regulation Authority. However, it was still uncertain whether the 1.35-million-kilowatt reactor located in the coastal area of Niigata Prefecture can actually be restarted soon because such a move still requires the consent of all local governments in the service area.

Jan 2 (LNGJ) - An earthquake with 7.6 magnitude hit Japan on January 1 in the Noto region of Ishikawa prefecture on Honshu island and killed at least 30 people in collapsed buildings. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for the Noto Peninsula and the advisory covered the coastline of the Sea of Japan, though was later withdrawn as the danger passed.

   Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) then said in a statement that power generation had been affected in the region. “The earthquake closed two of Hokuriku Electric's coal-fired power plants, the No. 1 unit of 500 megawatts and the No. 2 unit of 700 MW at the Nanao-Ota thermal power plant. There was also reduced output at the 500 MW gas-fired Toyama-Shinko thermal power plant of 300 MW,” said the METI.

Tokyo Gas, the Japanese LNG importer and city-gas operator, said 20,000 of its employees joined with other companies in downtown Tokyo to take part a successful day-long training drill assuming a large-scale future earthquake in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

“We carried out a comprehensive disaster prevention drill and such comprehensive drills have been conducted since 1983 with the aim of strengthening the disaster response capabilities of the Tokyo Gas Group,” said the company.

“In addition to about 20,000 employees of the Tokyo Gas Group, there was also cooperation with other Tokyo bodies, including the Metropolitan Police Department, the Metropolitan Expressway Company and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) East Corp,” explained Tokyo Gas.

The statement said that close cooperation also ensued between Tokyo Gas and Tokyo Electric Power Grid Inc. and TEPCO Energy Partners and related organizations and other infrastructure companies.

The exercise was carried out imagining an earthquake with a maximum seismic intensity of 7 occurring in the southern part of the downtown area during daytime on a weekday in July and issues such as gas supply suspension had to be coped with.

Information flow

“We confirmed and verified the disaster response. During the training, we also carried out information linkage using the Tokyo Disaster Information System,” stated Tokyo Gas.

“This training focused on the ‘initial stage’ from the occurrence of the earthquake to about 24 hours after the earthquake, which enhances the resilience to disasters, and was conducted as a ‘blind type training’ without preparing scenarios in advance,” added the company.

The exercise included coping with various time scenarios and Tokyo Gas employees confirmed and verified how to be on alert for aftershocks and how to respond to continuous severe related incidents.

The company declared that the Tokyo Gas Group would continue to take measures against disasters such as earthquakes and work to realize a strong and safe energy supply for Japan.

Japan operates 37 separate LNG import terminals and Tokyo Gas imports around 13 million tonnes per annum of LNG.

An earthquake took place offshore eastern Japan on 11 March 2011 and became known as the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Around 20,000 people died in that disaster which also damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant and set in motion profound changes in the nation’s energy outlook.

It also led to Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power, the two largest users and importers of LNG in Japan, integrating their thermal power operations and LNG imports under joint venture company JERA Co. Inc.

A group of Japanese utilities and energy companies will be receiving more liquefied natural gas volumes for the Soma LNG terminal after the new Fukushima Natural Gas Power Plant started to generate electricity at full capacity from its two units in the prefecture where the nuclear plant exploded during an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Japanese liquefied natural gas imports dropped for the sixth months out of the past seven as the nation received fewer shipments from the Middle East and Asia leading to a drop in its energy spending bill on fuels such as LNG and coal.

Shipments of LNG to Japan fell 13.1 percent in May to 5.56 million tonnes compared with 6.40MT in May 2018, according to preliminary figures from the Ministry of Finance.

Imports of the fuel had edged 0.3 percent higher in April to 5.62MT from 5.60Mt in April 2018 after dropping for the previous five straight months.

Imports of thermal coal, a competitor to LNG, also declined by 9.40 percent in May to 7.95MT.

Seven of Japan's nuclear power plants, which numbered 54 on line before the Fukushima disaster in 2011, were operating in May versus nine in the previous month.

The April 2019 rise in LNG deliveries to Japan had been the first since October 2018 when 6.53MT was received, a 6.5 rise on the previous October.

Even during the peak winter months from November 2018 through February 2019, imports dropped as the Japanese followed fuel-saving measures and the government encouraged a drop in costly LNG imports, with coal-fired power often filling the gap.

The cost of the May 2019 cargoes came to 302.17 billion yen ($2.79Bln), a decrease of 13.7 percent from the 350.33Bln yen ($3.23Bln) the cargoes cost in the same month a year ago.

For balance of payments purposes, Japan has been trying for several years to bring LNG import costs under control.

The Ministry’s data for May showed a plunge in imports from the Middle East region for a second successive month to their lowest level since around 2005.

The May 2019 shipments from countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman totaled 793,000 tonnes, down 44.8 percent on May 2018 and less than the 945,000 tonnes received in April 2019.

Analysts said the fall suggests continued plant maintenance work in the region at a time when there was also an outage of the Qatar-UAE Dolphin Energy natural gas pipeline.

The last time monthly shipments from the Middle East dropped under the 1MT level was in 2005 when they regularly totaled between 950,000 to 970,000 tonnes in the second quarter of the year.

Asian LNG shipments cargo deliveries also edged lower by 3.2 percent to 1.37MT from nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Brunei.

US volumes received also dropped to 130,000 tonnes versus 138,000 tonnes in April 2019, the equivalent of two large cargoes, while one delivery was received in the same month a year ago.

Monthly Russian shipments from the Sakhalin Island plant in the Far East amounted to 534,000 tonnes, a rise of 12.2 percent versus the same month in 2018.

The balance of imports from Australia, African nations and the spot market amounted to 2.73MT, higher than the 2.66MT imported in April 2019.

Japanese LNG imports had declined by 0.9 percent in 2018. The 2018 imports amounted to 82.85MT versus 83.63MT received in 2017.

Japan’s 2018 import bill was 20.8 percent higher than in 2017 at 4,730Bln yen ($43.14Bln). The Japanese had paid 19.3 percent more in 2017 compared with the previous year with an LNG bill of 3,915Bln yen ($35.58Bln).

Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. (Japex) said it began commercial operations at Japan’s newest LNG import terminal at Soma Port, located in Fukushima Prefecture in eastern Japan, near where the nuclear disaster happened seven years ago this month.