Panama’s first LNG terminal receives commissioning cargo

Panama’s and Central America’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal received on Thursday a commissioning cargo the from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass plant in the US.

Engie’s 154,000-cbm LNG carrier Provalys docked at Panama’s Costa Norte LNG import terminal on Thursday morning, a spokeswoman for AES in Panama, one of the two developers in the project, confirmed to LNG World News in an emailed comment.

US energy company AES Corporation, through AES Colon, has a 50.1 percent stake in the $1.1 billion LNG-to-power project that includes a 380MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT). The other 49.9 percent share belongs to Inversiones Bahia.

The Costa Norte LNG import terminal consists of a 180,000-cbm LNG tank, a jetty and regasification facilities. Total capacity of the LNG terminal is expected to be 1.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

According to a statement by AES in Panama, Provalys will stay at the LNG import facility in Colon for about month and a half after it would be replaced by Engie’s second LNG carrier, Gaselys, which has the same characteristics.

To remind, AES signed a deal last year with France’s Engie under which the latter would supply 400,000 tons of LNG per year over a 10-year period to the Costa Norte LNG terminal.

Consequently, the duo also entered into a joint venture to sell the chilled fuel to third parties in Central America.

ASE said in the statement it expects to start commercial operations at the AES Colon power plant in the coming months.

The AES Colon power plant will use only 25 percent of the LNG terminal’s capacity, while the remaining 75 percent would be marketed for other varied uses.

These uses include conversion of power plants that currently use bunker or diesel fuel, transportation and bunkering, Miguel Bolinaga, President of AES in Panama told LNG World News in an interview in April.

LNG World News Staff