GdF to build a new LNG terminal at Fos-sur-Mer

July 8, 2002
The board of Gaz de France approved last month its project to construct a second LNG terminal at Fos-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean Sea in southeastern France.

By an OGJ correspondent

PARIS, July 8 -- The board of Gaz de France approved last month its project to construct a second LNG terminal at Fos-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean Sea in southeastern France. Construction of the terminal—to be called Fos II—is not expected to begin before 2003 due to the time that it will take for French authorities to investigate environmental and security concerns. However, GdF could launch as early as next month the call for bids for construction of the terminal, the company said.

The project—which will involve port, storage, and regasification facilities—is expected to cost 300-430 million euros, depending on the number of tanks built, GdF said. The facility will have a maximum natural gas sendout capacity of 8.25 billion cu m/year and will be able to receive LNG carriers with cargoes of 160,000 cu m. The existing Fos I terminal, with a sendout capacity of 4.5 billion cu m, currently provides France with 11% of its total natural gas imports.

With construction of this new terminal, GdF is trying to help supply a gas market that is expected to grow to 45-50 billion cu m/year by 2006, it said. Besides France, GdF also is eyeing a growing, liberalized European market. The new Fos terminal project will provide for another long-term Mediterranean natural gas supplier, Egypt, in addition to traditional supplier Algeria.

GdF has already signed a second agreement with the UK's BG Group PLC and Italy's Edison International involving the purchase of 4.8 billion cu m/year of gas over a 20-year period starting in 2006-07 to come from the West Delta Deep Marine field off Egypt (OGJ, Feb. 11, 2002, p. 9). At the same time, it took part in a joint venture with BG and Edison to build a natural gas liquefaction unit at Idku, near Alexandria. Besides Egyptian gas, the new Fos terminal could also handle gas coming from Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean as well as extra natural gas supplies from Algeria.

TotalFinaElf SA has said it could be interested in taking part in the Fos II terminal project. This would not mean, however, abandoning its long-mulled project to build a terminal in southwestern France near the Spanish border, where its Artère du Midi gas pipeline joins up with Fos, the supermajor said.