LNG

JERA Co. Inc., Japan’s biggest liquefied natural gas importer and utility company, has issued a new “realistic pathway” for its growth strategy through 2035 led by more than 35 million tonnes per annum of LNG volumes and huge investments.

JERA Co. Inc, Japan’s biggest liquefied natural gas importer and utility company, has agreed to acquire a large stake in the Scarborough gas field development offshore Western Australia from Woodside Energy for US$1.5 billion, giving a financial boost to the Pluto LNG expansion.

JERA Co. Inc, Japan’s biggest liquefied natural gas importer and utility company, has signed an accord with a unit of Indonesia’s state-owned power supplier PT PLN (Persero) to cooperate on LNG supplies for Indonesian domestic use.

JERA Co. Inc, the largest buyer of liquefied natural gas for Japan, has overhauled its senior management structure and appointed co-Chief Executives and removed the positions of Chairman and President.

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.

JERA Co. Inc., the largest Japanese liquefied natural gas buyer with 35 million tonnes per annum of volumes and control of a fleet of 20 LNG carriers, has launched the environmental impact process for upgrading one of its key power plants at Chita in Aichi Prefecture.

JERA is Japan’s biggest fossil-fuel generator being owned jointly by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric, the two largest power companies.

The joint venture company currently operates and provides fuel for a total of 26 power plants in Japan and imports LNG into 11 of Japan’s network of 37 terminals.

JERA’s power plants have 70 gigawatts of capacity and the company is in the process of upgrading existing LNG and steam plants and also proposes to close its 2.2GW of coal-fired plants by 2030.

The current project for Chita in the Chubu region, whose capital is Nagoya, is for the construction of new Units 7 and 8 at the plant which will use the most modern combined-cycle gas-fired plant technology to make more efficient use of LNG imports.

The new gas-fired plants are expected to come on stream in August and December 2027.

JERA is one of the world’s largest LNG buyers and traders, taking volumes from leading global liquefaction plants.

In its plans for Chita, the older parts of the plants, units 1 to 5 with a combined 3,112 megawatts and using steam and LNG, are being decommissioned over the next few years through fiscal 2026.

The new Units 7 and 8 will then operate alongside the existing Unit 6 gas-fired re-powering plant, giving combined capacity of 2,154MW.

“In order to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, for new units 7 and 8 the plan adopts the latest high-efficiency combined-cycle power generation system (with gross thermal efficiency of approximately 63 percent),” said JERA.

“In addition, the environmental burden due to smoke and warm wastewater is expected to be lower when the plan has been carried out than for operations at the existing facility,” stated JERA.

JERA has submitted the Environmental Impact Assessment to Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Governor of Aichi Prefecture, the Mayor of Chita City and the Mayor of Tokai City, in accordance with the Environmental Impact Assessment Law and Electricity Business Act.

JERA said the documents would be made available for public review at the administrative agencies listed above and public meetings in the relevant areas are scheduled for the 26th March, 2021.

“People with opinions from an environmental conservation standpoint are invited to submit them via post or to drop them in boxes available at the public review locations,” explained JERA.

“JERA will continue to move forward with the environmental impact assessment process, giving due consideration to the opinions of other stakeholders,” it added. 

Ohgishima City Gas Supply Co., a joint venture between Japan’s main LNG importers, has begun commercial operations of a city-gas production and supply facility with a calorific value adjustment system in the Ohgishima district of Kawasaki City.

A ceremony took place on November 6 at the Negishi LNG terminal in Yokohama City involving the four companies involved in the delivery and unloading 50 years ago of the first cargo shipped to Japan from Alaska onboard the “Polar Alaska” carrier.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding of Japan said it held a naming ceremony for the fourth vessel in a series of five being constructed to ship LNG cargoes from the US Gulf Coast to the main Japanese import terminals.

The 180,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Noshu Maru” with covered Moss-type storage tanks will be put into regular service transporting LNG from the Freeport LNG plant in Texas for Jera Co. Inc. the LNG supply arm of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric.

The joint owner of the “Noshu Maru” with Jera is Japanese shipping line Mitsui OSK Lines, which will operate the ship.

“The latest model ‘Sayaringo’ type ship features significant improvements in both LNG carrying capacity and fuel performance due to the adoption of a more efficient hull structure and an innovative hybrid propulsion system” said Mitsubishi.

The christening ceremony was held at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Shipyard and was attended by representatives of the ship owners and their guests.

Mitsubishi said that Chubu Electric Power President, Satoru Katsuno, announced the name of the ship while his wife performed the ceremonial rope cutting.

The “Noshu Maru” is 297.5 metres in length and is 48.94m in width. It has a depth of 27.0m, with a draft of 11.1m. Deadweight tonnage is approximately 80,300 tons.

Ship joint-owner Jera was established in 2015 as an equal-share joint venture between Tepco and Chubu.

Its business operations include the construction and refurbishment of thermal power plants in Japan, as well as energy infrastructure projects and power generation overseas.

Mitsubishi explained that the “Sayaringo STaGE” is a successor to the “Sayaendo” type, a vessel acclaimed for its reliability and innovatively refined Moss-type spherical tanks.

“The use of apple-shaped tanks allows for greater LNG carrying capacity without increases to the ship's width, while the hybrid propulsion system further improves fuel efficiency over the previous model,” said Mitsubishi.

The company said that STaGE was an acronym derived from “Steam Turbine and Gas Engines,” describing the hybrid propulsion system combining steam-turbine and gas-fired engines.

“Going forward, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and MHI Marine Structure will continue the development of next-generation LNG carriers with exceptional fuel efficiency and sustainable performance,” stated the company.

Jera Trading (Jerat), the joint trading venture between Japanese LNG and fuel procurement and utility company Jera Co. Inc. and French firm EDF Trading established in April 2017 following the acquisition of EDFT’s coal business, is continuing its countdown to becoming Jera Global Markets.

Jerat is strengthening its team by hiring a senior trader from global commodities firm Vitol.

Jerat said Alex Baileff would join the company in April as Senior Vice President for Coal.

“We are looking forward to welcoming Alex to Jera Trading. He brings with him a wealth of knowledge and trading experience which will be an asset to our coal and freight activities as we develop Jerat’s global footprint,” said Sunao Nakamura, Chairman of the Board of Jera Trading.

Jera and EDF Trading signed an agreement last year to form an LNG optimization and trading joint venture whereby Jera’s and EDFT’s LNG trading activities would be merged into Jerat, which will be renamed Jera Global Markets.

This agreement is expected to be completed in early 2019. Baileff will join Jerat’s senior team comprising Kazunori Kasai, Chief Executive; Robert Quick, Director of Corporate Affairs; Hisaki Endo, Director of Group Coordination; Ronan Lory, Chief Operating Officer; and Sarah Behbehani, senior Vice President of LNG.

Jera Co. Inc is the main company in all the operations. It was set up by Tokyo Electric Power Co and Chubu Electric to combine their LNG and other trading activities and ultimately to run their power businesses as the industry in Japan reformed and was deregulated.

On the trading front, the new Jera Global Markets will have more than 300 people and offices in Japan, Singapore, the UK, the US and the Netherlands, Jerat will become one of the largest utility-owned seaborne energy optimizers, spanning Asia, the Pacific and the Atlantic Basins.

The two firms noted that as the demand for LNG in Japan becoming increasingly variable and difficult to predict and with the ramp-up in US liquefaction and exports, Europe has become a key balancing market for excess global LNG.

Jera and EDFT have said there is significant room for optimizing LNG on a global basis, establishing a more liquid market, and over time developing a clear pricing signal for LNG in Asia.

Jera Co. Inc. holds 66.67 percent of the equity in Jerat through its wholly-owned subsidiary Jera Trading International while the French firm holds 33.33 percent of the Jerat shares.