KOGAS winds down roof air-raising ops on LNG tank quartet

South Korea’s state-owned natural gas importer and transporter Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) has completed the roofing of four liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks at the country’s Dangjin LNG terminal.

According to the South Korean firm, the roof air-raising work for the first of the four 270,000 kiloliter storage tanks was finished in May, followed by tanks Nos. 2 and 4 in June, with tank No. 3 being the last one to be completed. Doosan Enerbility, known as Doosan Heavy at the time, won the contract to build these tanks in 2021.

As part of the air-raising process, a roof weighing 1,350 tonnes was built at the bottom of an LNG storage tank and then lifted 45 meters by injecting air between the bottom of the tank and the roof. The firm claims this shortens the storage tank construction period and ensures higher stability compared to other construction methods.

“In order to produce and supply natural gas more reliably in Korea, we are building the Dangjin LNG Production Base on a scale of 270,000 pyeong in Seokmun National Industrial Complex in Dangjin, Chungcheongnam Province,” said an official from the gas corporation. “We will respond to the national energy policy and actively contribute to the revitalization of the local economy by collaborating with Dangjin City and local companies.”

The firm intends to start with the roof ridges of four storage tanks as the first stage and move on to the internal construction work, including the installation of steel plates and insulation materials. Currently, all construction activities at the LNG terminal are planned to be wrapped up by 2030.

KOGAS is part of the partnership of the LNG Canada joint venture (JV), consisting of Shell (operator), Petronas, PetroChina, and Mitsubishi, which is developing an LNG export terminal in Kitimat, Canada’s British Columbia. The project’s production capacity will be 14 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) from the first two trains, expandable to four trains in the future.

Earlier this month, the JV was awaiting the delivery of a shipment of refrigerants to be used to cool natural gas delivered to LNG Canada. As flaring is scheduled to start in August, the partners are convinced that the first ship carrying LNG produced onsite can be expected by mid-2025.