LNG News Editor:
New Fortress Energy Inc., the US company with LNG-to-power projects in South America, the Caribbean and Sri Lanka in Asia, said completion work was being carried out on a new Nicaraguan import facility while its Mexican terminal in the state of Baja California Sur was now fully operational.
The terminal in Nicaragua is located at Puerto Sandino and building and installation work for both the terminal and an adjacent power plant will be completed by year-end with commissioning planned in the first quarter of 2022.
West Coast
The fully operational Mexican Pacific Coast facility is at the port of Pichilingue near La Paz.
New Fortress uses what it calls its “ISO Flex System”, explained as a large ship offloading ISO containers onto small offshore support vessels (OSVs), for its newest terminals.
The vessel at the port of Pichilingue has been equipped with NFE's ISO FLEX using a proprietary manifold and LNG cargo containment system under license to New Fortress by Argent Marine Management. The New York-based company said in its third-quarter earnings statement that it was continuing to make “great progress” in the first of several planned “Fast LNG” production assets to be deployed in two separate paths.
This will include tolling agreements with high-credit quality counterparties to lock in stable cash flows similar to another current project, the converted FLNG production vessel, the “Hilli”.
New Fortress gave the updates in its third-quarter earnings revealing higher quarterly revenues of $304.7 million compared with $233.8M in the second quarter.
However, net losses widened to $17.8M from $1.7M in the previous three-month period.
New Fortress added that two Brazilian projects, in Barcarena in the state of Pará and Santa Catarina in southern Brazil, were advancing on schedule to supply regasified LNG for power.
For the Barcarena venture the Norsk Hydro company executed definitive commercial terms for 15 years of LNG supply and the facility will also ship LNG to the Alunorte alumina refinery starting in the first quarter of 2023.
“Continued energy shortages in Brazil have led to emergency power measures, including an auction in the South and Southeast region which took place in October,” the US company noted.
The company said it was positioned to supply LNG through the Santa Catarina terminal for power plants with more than 400 megawatts of capacity from the second quarter of 2022.
New Fortress also revealed that it was targeting the acquisition of a key site on the US Gulf Coast in the fourth quarter, with permitting, engineering and financing expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2022.
On the financing front, New Fortress closed a ship loan facility at interest of 300 basic points above the London Interbank Rate with initial proceeds of $425M and with an increase possible for an additional $300M.
The company recently agreed to invest in West Coast Power Ltd (WCP), the owner of the 310-megawatts Yugadanavi Power Plant based in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo while also developing an LNG facility off the coast.
As part of that transaction, New Fortress will have gas supply rights to the Kerawalapitya Power Complex, where 310 MW of power is operational now and an additional 700 MW is scheduled to be built, of which 350 MW will be operational by 2023.
