FILIPINO COMPANY Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Co. (AG&P) will develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at a port on the east coast of India in a deal that includes sourcing the fuel overseas as well as supplying it to industrial users and communities.
“[The project] is about $200 million,” said AG&P Director Jose C. Ibazeta in a recent interview ahead of the company’s announcement of the deal on Monday.
Aside from the floating import terminal, the project will also have a component for an onshore regasification facility and a floating storage. Its capacity is 125 million cubic feet per day of gas or 1 million ton per annum, which is enough to support the existing demand in the area.
Imported natural gas is transformed into liquid form to reduce its volume for easier shipping. The regasification process takes place in the destination.
“The difficulty of building a huge facility is the time element,” Mr. Ibazeta said, adding the project has the advantage of requiring smaller capital expenditure and a shorter time for completion.
By mid-2019, he said the LNG import terminal is expected to start operating. AG&P has standardized the design for its terminal, allowing it to scale up the project’s capacity depending on the users’ demand for more gas.
AG&P has partnered with Karaikal Port Pvt. Ltd. (KKPL) for the LNG terminal. KPPL is a deep-water port developed on a build, operate and transfer scheme under public-private partnership as awarded by the local government of Puducherry on the east coast of India.
The project is attractive for AG&P because the import terminal is to built in deep water, thus it will not require costly dredging. Once completed, the terminal will link to the network of the Gas Authority of India Ltd.
At most, AG&P will be building a 4-kilometer pipeline from the import terminal to move the gas onshore, Mr. Ibazeta said.
AG&P described the Karaikal port as having thrived since its started operations in 2009. It said the port has handled more than 46 million tons of cargo and has received at least 1,400 commercial vessels.
As part of the port’s expansion beyond commercial cargos, it has carved within its existing breakwater to develop an LNG terminal to serve power, industrial and other customers in the region.
AG&P’s LNG import terminal will complement another facility being built 300 kilometers to the north. It will provide wider gas accessibility to Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, which has manufacturing plants for fertilizer, cement, steel, textile , leather, sugar and garment industries.
Mr. Ibazeta said AG&P’s standardized designs and modular approach to building an LNG terminal is developed in its Houston, Texas engineering center.
The 117-year-old company will be building the components for the terminal from its manufacturing plant in Batangas. — Victor V. Saulon
