By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 27 -- The Jan. 20 explosion that destroyed 3 of 6 production trains at the Skikda LNG complex in Algeria left US firms scrambling to reassure investors and neighbors of the safety of both existing and proposed LNG delivery terminals in the US.
The Skikda incident reportedly involved a steam boiler in a plant associated with the LNG complex but not directly linked with the LNG itself, industry spokesmen told participants of an LNG conference in Houston Monday and Tuesday that was sponsored by the Strategic Research Institute.
Industry representatives said the equipment believed responsible for the accident is not used in any existing or proposed US LNG projects.
John Hattenberger, senior vice-president of Marathon International Petroleum Ltd., said the industry does have the task of educating the public so that it becomes more comfortable with LNG imports.
Speaking Monday to the SRI conference, Hattenberger said that industry must demonstrate to the public that it respects the safety risks associated with the petroleum business.
In addition, industry needs to convince the public that it is acting prudently to reduce and manage safety risks, he added.
Michelle Michot Foss, executive director and assistant research professor of the Institute for Energy, Law & Enterprise at the University of Houston, said that the Algerian accident "wasn't helpful" for US LNG projects.
The incident probably will generate "misinformed (public) perceptions of the likelihood of that happening," in the US, she told the SRI conference. But she doubts that the Algerian incident will influence the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's actions regarding LNG projects or proposals.
Steam boiler
Although he would not speak for attribution, an engineer with one major international oil company told OGJ in a telephone interview that, "The information we had said that the LNG storage and marine facilities were not involved in the [Skikda] accident and that it was not the LNG that caused the problem."
Based on information obtained by his company, the engineer said the steam boiler that exploded was located in "GL-1K unit 40" and was "part of the GL-1K phase 2 expansion (units 40, 5P & 6P) built by Prichard Rhodes in the late 1970's using an old design of the PRICO process. The plant became operational in 1981."
He said, "PRICO uses a single compressor with a mixed refrigerant. Modern LNG plants use gas turbines to drive the compressors in their liquefaction units. Unit 40 used a single large steam boiler and a single large 100,000 horsepower steam driven turbine attached by a shaft to the refrigerant compressor. From our info, the boiler appears to be [have been] very close to the steam turbine and compressor."
The source also reported that a maintenance building adjacent to the Unit 40 process area apparently collapsed during the mishap.
Officials at Sonatrach, Algeria's state-owned oil and gas company, initially blamed a faulty boiler for the explosion that left 27 people dead and 74 injured (OGJ Online, Jan. 20, 2004). They later reported that, in addition to the three destroyed trains, a nearby berth for loading LNG tankers was heavily damaged.
There were no initial reports of damage to an adjacent 300,000 b/d refinery, but officials said that facility was shut down following the blast. The complex exports about 15 million tonnes/year of LNG, crude, and refined products, primarily to European markets, officials said.
Chakib Khelil, Algeria's minister of energy and mines, later pledged that Algeria would honor gas delivery commitments to European customers through increased deliveries of natural gas through two existing pipelines to replace the lost liquefied natural gas supplies. He said the transportation capacity of the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline from Algeria to Spain and then into Portugal would be increased by about 3 billion cu m within 2 weeks as a new compressor station goes into operation.
Algeria is the world's second largest LNG exporter after Indonesia. Primary customers for its LNG in 2002 were France, Spain, Turkey, Belgium, Italy, the US, and Greece, in that order.
