By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, June 15 -- Inauguration of South America’s first LNG plant took place earlier this month. At $3.8 billion, Peru LNG represents the largest investment in a single project ever made in Peru, according to the announcement by the owning consortium.
Start-up of the Melchorita plant, at KP 170 of the South Pan American Hwy, also incorporated commissioning a 253-mile pipeline and a marine terminal. The plant has a nominal capacity of 4.4 million tons/year and will process 620 MMcfd of natural gas.
In addition, at the plant site are the two largest storage tanks in Peru (130,000 cu m of LNG each) and a marine terminal that stretches more than 1 km long and will receive tankers of 90,000 to 173,000 cu m each.
The consortium reported the project includes installation of pipeline infrastructure to serve the Peruvian market. Under an agreement, recently approved by Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, with Transportadora de Gas del Perú SA, which operates the Camisea natural gas and NGL pipelines, the Peru LNG pipeline will provide up to 550 MMcfd of capacity for the Peruvian market, said the announcement. That, it said, will debottleneck gas transportation to “bring more gas to power generation companies, industrial companies, vehicles running on natural gas, and Peruvian homes using natural gas for heat.”
Four energy companies form Peru LNG: Hunt Oil Co. (US; 50%), SK Energy (South Korea; 20%), Repsol-YPF (Spain; 20%), and and Marubeni Corp. (Japan; 10%). This consortium was specifically set up to develop, build, and operate Peru LNG.
Among construction contractors were CB&I, Houston, in charge of the plant’s engineering, procurement, and construction; CDB consortium (Saipem, Jan de Nul, and Odebrecht), in charge of marine terminal EPC, and Techint, responsible for installing the pipeline.
Such Peruvian companies as Grana & Montero, Cosapi, Translei, Minera San Martin, Cosmos, Aceros Arequipa, Tecnicas Metalicas, Esmetal and Sima, among many others, also contributed to the project, said the consortium.
