Promigas, the utility company in the South American nation of Colombia, said it was studying a boost in regasification capacity at its Cartagena floating LNG import terminal on the Caribbean Coast to meet increasing demand.
Promigas, based in the Caribbean coastal city of Barranquilla, has a 51 percent equity stake in the consortium that operates the Cartagena terminal, with the remainder held by the Dutch global tank storage company Royal Vopak.
Co-owners
Vopak, which is also a co-owner of the Gate LNG facility in Rotterdam, purchased a stake two years ago in the Cartagena terminal.
The Dutch company also owns 60 percent of the Mexican Gulf Coast onshore LNG import terminal at Altamira.
The Colombian facility consists of an LNG jetty, onshore infrastructure and 9.2 kilometres of gas pipeline connecting to the national gas grid. “Technical studies are underway to determine the feasibility of expansion works, the first stage of which could begin in 2022,” said Promigas.
“Based on the evaluations and considering the current and projected natural gas transportation infrastructure, we could develop the expansion in phases, aligned with transport network capacity and demand,” added the company.
Completed in 2016 at a cost of US$427 million, the Cartagena terminal is served by an FSRU, the 170,050 cubic metres capacity vessel “Höegh Grace”, which is on charter from Norwegian fleet owner Höegh LNG.
The terminal company holds long-term supply contracts with three gas-fired power plants.
“The plans would expand the facility's capacity to 450 million cubic feet per day by the end of 2022 and to 600 million cubic feet per day by late 2025,” explained Promigas.
The proposed LNG expansion at Cartagena came after Colombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy cancelled a tender for a $700M LNG project on the nation’s Pacific coast because of a lack of interest.
Analysts note that potential bidders had expressed particular concern about the project's pipeline component, given the historic socio-environmental hurdles for developers of infrastructure projects in Colombia's Pacific coastal region.
CEO departs
“Colombia is at a critical point in terms of natural gas and the time has come to make decisions,” said the Promigas outgoing President Eric Flesch, referring to the proven gas reserves in the country, which are so far enough for 8.5 years of consumption.
Flesch was scheduled to step down at the start of December 2021.
The Board had previously thanked Flesch as the head of Promigas and recognized his “ proactive leadership and long-term vision” for the company’s operations in Colombia as well as Peru.
