Camisea project green light hits another delay

Dec. 4, 2000
A final green light for Peru's Camisea natural gas megaproject has run into another last-minute delay just as the winning consortia were preparing to sign the final contracts.

A final green light for Peru's Camisea natural gas megaproject has run into another last-minute delay just as the winning consortia were preparing to sign the final contracts.

Those signatures have been put on hold in order to evaluate details, according to Carlos Herrera, Peru's new energy and mining minister. The minister said that the contracts will be signed within a reasonable time, although a date has yet to be set. The signing was originally postponed from Nov. 28 to a tentative Dec. 5 (OGJ Online, Nov. 28, 2000), following ex-Pres. Alberto Fujimori's surprise resignation last month and the inauguration Nov. 22 of new Pres. Valentin Paniagua, who appointed a new cabinet.

The government last week was considering postponing the signing for a further 30 days, in part to seek a major gas distributor to replace Spain's Gas Natural, which withdrew from the Tecgas-led consortium shortly before the consortium presented its offer for the Camisea transport and distribution concessions. Gas Natural was to have taken up 6.34% of the contract to become the distributor of gas in Lima and Callao.

The present consortium includes Tecgas, a unit of Argentina's Techint; Dallas-based Hunt Oil Co.; South Korea's SK Corp.; Algeria's Sonatrach, and Peru's Gra

The consortium was the sole bidder for the concession with an offer of $1.45 billion, including the companies' fees for the duration of the contract. The consortium that won the tender for development of the Camisea gas-condensate fields consists of Techint, Hunt, and SK.

The contracts require the companies to complete the project within 44 months of signing. That could put the completion date in mid-2004, although company engineers estimate they could bring the date forward to late 2003.

Camisea reserves are estimated at 13 tcf of gas and 620 million bbl of condensate. The project is expected to cost $2.6 billion over the next 30 years, including $1.4 billion for construction and operation of the transport and distribution facilities.