LNG

July 11 (LNGJ) - Two LNG and natural gas market players, the French energy company Engie and the Australian bank Macquarie, have signed a joint venture deal to expand a Mexican gas pipeline system. The partnership involves Macquarie acquiring a 50 percent stake to help finance the construction of a 700-kilometres (435-mile) natural gas pipeline.

   The enterprise value of the Mayakan project will be around $3 billion. The new pipeline will double the natural gas transportation capacity for the Yucatán Peninsula and when completed will pass through the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán.

Mexico has taken hurricane protection measures through July 7 as the first major storm of the season Hurricane Beryl blew past Jamaica towards Mexico, leading to the closure of airports at Cancún and elsewhere and putting the oil and gas industry on watch in the Gulf of Mexico where most of the US LNG is produced.

Royal Vopak of the Netherlands has reached a positive final investment decision with Canada’s AltaGas to proceed with a large-scale energy and bulk liquids terminal at Ridley Island in the Canadian Pacific province of British Columbia.

US major ConocoPhillips has agreed to acquire Marathon Oil Corp., the US company and main shareholder in Equatorial Guinea LNG in West Africa as well as a key operator in the major US shale basins.

The US Department of Energy issued its April 2024 liquefied natural gas and pipelines export and import data report with France as the leading destination for LNG shipments while the leadership in highest prices remained with the Calcasieu Pass plant in Louisiana.

Technip Energies, the leading European energy and liquefied natural gas project engineers, reported solid profits and its backlog surged as it pledged to strengthen its leadership in 2024 in the low-carbon LNG sector.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to have gradually increasing liquefied natural gas demand, driven by the region's economic recovery and new regasification facilities coming online.

US utility Sempra, whose assets include LNG projects on the US Gulf Coast and Mexico and natural gas and power businesses in California, reported full-year earnings of $2.09 billion compared with $1.25Bln in 2021 and was preparing an imminent final investment decision on the Port Arthur LNG project in Texas.

The South American nation of Colombia is making moves to import more liquefied national gas as the floating LNG terminal at the port of Cartagena has revealed expansion plans.

The terminal is a joint venture between Colombia’s Promigas and Dutch global energy storage giant Royal Dutch Vopak and is called SPEC LNG from its formal name, Sociedad Portuaria El Cayao.

SPEC LNG said it was now inviting expressions of interest from market participants for potential regasification services.

The Colombian floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) is one of the original wave of FSRUs deployed in South America.

Cartagena is in the far northeast of the country on the Caribbean Sea and the terminal has been operational since December 2016.

SPEC LNG pointed out that the facility is Colombia’s main connection to international LNG markets and supports 2,000 megawatts of gas-fired power generation, about 60 percent of Colombia's gas-fired electricity capacity.

Gas security move

SPEC LNG said it was taking measures to address a potential shortage of natural gas supply in Colombia.

“Expansion plans consist of increasing its regasification capacity from 400 million cubic feet per day to 450 million cubic feet per day by the end of 2023 and up to a total of 530 mmscf per day as of the second half of 2026,” explained the company.

“This market test aims to assess demand from market participants´ for the potential additional capacity ahead of a final investment decision,” added SPEC.

The aim of the expansion is to ensure both medium-term and long-term supply of natural gas in Colombia as part of its energy transition measures.

“Considering the latest natural gas supply and demand projections in Colombia, the expansion of the capacity of our LNG import terminal is an efficient and competitive option to ensure the supply of natural gas to the market,” said Jose M. Castro, Managing Director of SPEC.

“As a result, this market test will help us advance to the next stages of the project before the FID,” he stated.

Vopak LNG interests

Dutch company Vopak’s most high-profile LNG investment is its 50 percent stake in the Gate LNG terminal in Rotterdam

Its involvement with SPEC LNG is through its 49 percent shareholding in the project with 170,000 cubic metres of capacity.

It also holds 60 percent of the Mexican Altamira import terminal on the Gulf of Mexico.

Vopak’s other LNG interests include its 44 percent stake in the 150,000 cubic metres capacity Engro Elengy terminal in Pakistan.

Dec 13 (LNGJ) - New Fortress Energy, the New York-based LNG projects developer, said it expected the business to generate more than $11 billion of additional liquidity over the next three years and more cash would be returned to shareholders.

   “Our business is now generating significant, stable, and growing cash, which we believe affords us the ability to both retain capital necessary to grow and return excess capital to shareholders in the form of meaningful dividends,” said Wes Edens, Chairman and Chief Executive of NFE. “We are fortunate to have a strong balance sheet and the liquidity we believe is necessary to execute our strategy and achieve our goals, matching long-term LNG supply with long-term power demand around the world,” added Edens, who also cited investments in floating LNG facilities.