LNG

Seaspan, the CanadianPacific Coast company specialising in the tugs and barges sector as well as ferries and shipyard services, said it signed an accord to improve LNG bunkering services and loading at the Panama Canal in cooperation with AES Corp. of the US.

Air Products, the leading provider of LNG equipment and processing and industrial gases, reported a fiscal quarterly increase of 5 percent in sales to $2.4 billion, though net income remained flat over the three months as orders included one for Mexico’s first LNG export project.

Sempra Energy’s Mexican subsidiary said a joint venture formed by the Costa Azul LNG export project, including French energy major Total, has signed a loan agreement for partial funding.

The Sempra unit, Infraestructura Energética Nova (IEnova), said the ECA Liquefaction venture had signed a five-year loan deal for an aggregate amount of up to $1.5805 billion in relation to the ECA LNG export project.

“The financing, which will not consolidate in IEnova’s balance sheet, has three tranches associated with the commitments of each joint venture partner,” explained IEnova.

Earlier, Sempra and IENova said their Costa Azul project had signed an equity investment agreement with Total, giving the French company a 16.6 percent equity stake in the first phase of Costa Azul, with Sempra and IEnova each retaining 41.7 percent ownership.

Total also has a 20-year sale and purchase agreement for around 1.7 million tonnes per annum of Costa Azul volumes.

IEnova said that financial institutions that took part in the Costa Azul project financing for its tranche were the Bank of Nova Scotia, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. of Japan, Spanish bank BBVA Securities, and Banco Nacional de México with its Banamex financial group.

Technip Energies, the LNG and energy project contract division of TechnipFMC, the Franco-US company, received a notice to proceed for its Costa Azul LNG engineering, procurement and construction contract following the positive final investment decision taken by Sempra and its partners in November 2020.

Technip said it had been involved in Costa Azul, an existing LNG import terminal, since 2017, including the delivery of the front-end engineering and design for the transformation into an export plant.

As well as owning Costa Azul through IEnova, Sempra also operates the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana and is also developing the Port Arthur liquefaction facility in Texas.

Sempra is also currently arranging various transactions Energy under which its publicly-held stake in IEnova would be exchange for Sempra Energy shares.

Sempra owned over 66 percent of IEnova and made a tender offer for the outstanding shares listed on the Mexican stock exchange, the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV), to be swapped for Sempra Energy shares.

The Mexican share deal was necessary to clear the way for the pooling of Sempra’s LNG and natural gas and renewable assets into one company to be called Sempra Infrastructure Partners.

Sempra said it expected all transactions to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.

After this time, Sempra’s LNG portfolio would be united under one company with potential total production volumes of 45 MTPA.

New Fortress Energy, the developer of liquefied natural gas and power projects in Latin America and the Caribbean with new LNG import projects in Nicaragua and Mexico, said the company entered into a temporary supply termination agreement with the LNG subsidiary of UK utility Centrica.

New Fortress Energy, the New York-based LNG developer in the Caribbean and Central America,  said it was progressing with construction of a Mexican liquefied natural gas import and regasification terminal in the port of Pichilingue on the Pacific Coast.

New Fortress Energy, the owner of liquefied natural gas facilities in Florida and in Jamaica and projects in Puerto Rico, has signed an agreement to supply LNG to Nicaragua and to deploy a floating import as part of a power venture.

New Fortress also signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with two of Nicaragua’s main electricity distribution companies.

As part of the agreement, New Fortress will construct a natural gas-fired power plant with a capacity of around 300 megawatts near Puerto Sandino to supply power to Nicaragua’s national electric grid. 

“The plant is expected to contribute to the advancement of the country’s long-term economic development while also assisting the transition to lower-carbon, more environmentally friendly energy,” said New Fortress.

The US company, whose corporate headquarters are in New York, will supply natural gas to the plant via a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) offshore Puerto Sandino on the Pacific Coast. 

The port was formerly known as Puerto Somoza before the 1979 revolution in the Central American nation.

Under the terms of the power agreement, New Fortress is expected to provide natural gas over 25 years, which will be the equivalent of about 700,000 gallons of LNG (60,000 MMBtu) per day.

“The project is expected to be funded with cash on hand and funds from operations,” said New Fortress.

“The terminal and the plant are anticipated to begin commercial operations in the second half of 2021, subject to various conditions, including obtaining required licenses and permits,” added the company.

New Fortress recently signed a long-term LNG supply agreement for eight cargoes a year for 10 years through January 2030.

The New Fortress company is led by Wes Edens, co-founder of the private equity group Fortress Investment.

New Fortress made its debut on the Nasdaq global exchange in January 2019 after an initial public offering. 

Its main corporate focus now is introducing LNG to markets that lack access to the fuel.

In addition to its 100,000 gallons per day liquefaction plant in Miami, it operates a floating LNG terminal in Montego Bay, Jamaica, along with a fuel-handling facility and an associated contract in the US territory of Puerto Rico.

The New Fortress Puerto Rico subsidiary, NFEnergía, has also entered into a contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority for the supply of natural gas and conversion of two out of six units at the San Juan combined-cycle power plant. 

The Miami facility began operations in April 2016 and enables the company to produce LNG for export in intermodal ISO containers to the Caribbean and to small-scale customers in southern Florida.

The company is also looking at developing a Pennsylvania LNG distribution facility. 

Rockies LNG, a firm set up by a group of Canadian natural gas exploration and production companies, is considering developing its own barge-based export project on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia as an outlet for abundant gas resources.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a draft environmental impact statement for the Jordan Cove LNG export project in the northwest state of Oregon and the regulator’s comments suggest serious reservations about the Canadian-led venture being able to meet the many required mitigation measures.

US major ExxonMobil and its Canadian subsidiary Imperial Oil Resources have decided not to proceed with their plans for an LNG export project near the Port of Prince Rupert, where a liquefaction plant was proposed on the same scale as Royal Dutch Shell’s LNG Canada joint venture.

LNG Canada, the largest export project proposed for the Pacific Coast province of British Columbia, could hold a ground-breaking ceremony before the end of 2018 as the joint venture led by Royal Dutch Shell gets back on track.