Panama's Costa Norte LNG Slips to 2019

Start-up of the planned Costa Norte LNG import terminal at Colon, Panama, has slipped from 2018 to 2019, according to an investor in the project. 

US power group AES and Panamanian private investment fund Inversiones Bahia are 50-50% investors in the 1.5mn mt/yr LNG terminal project, being built alongside the 380 MW 'AES Colon' gas-fired power plant (CCGT), both were scheduled to open 2018. Investment in both combined is about $1bn.

However AES noted August 8, on a slide accompanying its 2Q results, that the “regasification and LNG storage tank [is] expected online 2019.”

French utility Engie had been scheduled to supply up to 0.4mn mt/yr LNG starting 2018 there, under a supply deal inked in 2016 – although that may now also have slipped to 2019. AES was not immediately available for comment about reasons for the reported deferral.

Only three months ago Engie and AES agreed to consider the Costa Norte project as a possible location for marketing LNG to third parties, including as a bunker fuel. Colon is at the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal.

In Dominican Republic, a Caribbean country where AES has imported LNG since 2003 for regasification and use in power production, the US firm said it recently completed a 122 MW expansion – costing $260mn of its existing CCGT plant -- extending its 'DPP' plant's total capacity there to 358 MW.

Update as of August 9: Engie referred press enquiries to AES about Panama. NGW has since though reported that one of Engie's likely sources of LNG supply for Panama, the Cameron LNG export project on the US Gulf, is now also not expected to start up until 2019. AES has yet to respond to NGW.

Mark Smedley