Mobil details plans for Taiwan LNG terminal

Mobil Corp. unit Mobil LNG & Power Inc. has disclosed more details about its plans for a liquefied natural gas terminal in Taiwan, a project that would be the largest foreign investment in Taiwan's petroleum sector.

Early reports from Taiwan indicated that Mobil plans to spend $580 million to establish an LNG terminal there to feed five power plants (OGJ, July 20, 1998, Newsletter).

Mobil last week said it plans to invest as much as $700 million to build an LNG receiving terminal off the northern coast of Taiwan.

Project status

The company is also in the process of applying to Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs for the necessary licensing and construction permits, Chao said.

"Because an offshore project of this type has not been attempted in Taiwan before, the situation is much more complex than would ordinarily be the case," he said. "There are currently no laws and regulations in place to govern such a project. So the pertinent regs must be drawn up before the project can move ahead."

Chao noted that the formulation of the required regulations could be complicated by the large number of government bodies involved. "In addition to the ministries of finance and economic affairs," he said, "the ministry of national defense is insisting on being involved in the process, as is the ministry of transportation and communications. There are also organizations under the various ministries, such as the Industrial Development Bureau, that must be consulted. Then there are the Taoyuan county government and possibly one or more local governments to be considered."

On the plus side, Chao said, the project may not encounter as much resistance from environmental activists as have several other recent foreign energy industry investment projects in Taiwan, because it is to be built offshore. Several other industry sources in Taipei back this opinion, pointing out that, in most of the recent cases, many of the more vocal protesters have proven to be local residents attempting to obtain monetary compensation from the companies involved rather than "legitimate" environmentalist activists.

Project details

The unit, which will have a footprint of about 4 hectares, will be built elsewhere and towed to the site. The plan calls for the platform to be installed in water depths of at least 20 m so that the dredging of channels will not be required.

In addition to the terminal itself, the project will require the laying of 2-3 km of subsea pipeline. The length of the associated onshore pipeline that will be required will be determined by the location of the platform. According to Chao, the decision as to where to situate the terminal has not yet been made: "At this point, all I can say is that the location will be somewhere along the coast of Taoyuan County and most probably between 2 and 3 km offshore."

Upon start-up, the terminal will have capacity of about 3 million metric tons/year. Chao said that the LNG will probably be supplied from Qatar. "At present, Mobil has no excess capacity available from its Indonesian sources, while we hold a 25% share in (Qatari LNG project Ras Laffan LNG Co.), which has the ability to supply the required amount," he said.

The major clients of the new terminal are expected to be several power generating facilities now under construction or planned for northern Taiwan. Chief among these will be Taiwan Power Co.'s 4,000-MW Tatan plant, which will require 1.9-2.0 million tons/year of LNG.

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