Dunkerque LNG Counts Weeks to 1st Cargo (Correction)
"Construction is 98% complete" (corrects the originally published figure of 90%). The corrected text follows:
France’s LNG terminal at Dunkirk remains on schedule to receive its first LNG cargo by the end of this June, it told NGE April 11.
Reganosa, which owns and runs the El Ferrol LNG import terminal in northwest Spain, said on April 8 its subsidiary had been awarded a contract to help with the Dunkirk terminal’s final testing and start-up. The Spanish firm will sub-contract to the main EPC contractor, a joint venture of Italian-Argentine firm Techint and Spain’s Sener.
Dunkirk has three tanks, each holding 190,000 m3 of LNG, will be capable of regasifying 13bn m3/yr – equivalent to 20 % of the combined consumption of France and Belgium – and will end up costing over €1bn. It will be able to receive 80 tankers a year of up to 270,000 m3 cargo size.
Reganosa Servicios will send seven technicians to Dunkirk – the first having already arrived – and for six months they manage local staff until they acquire the necessary experience to run the complex.
Dunkerque LNG – a joint venture of EDF 65%, Belgium’s Fluxys 25% and Total 10% – was physically connected to the French GRTgaz pipeline system on November 19 last year which in turn is interconnected with Fluxys' gas system and own LNG terminal in neighbouring Belgium.
Construction is 98% complete, Dunkerque LNG press officer Olivier Thierry told NGE. Although there is no LNG on site yet, testing began earlier this year of the LNG tanks’ integrity, and also of the innovative system of warm water pipes that will convey waste heat from the 5,400 MW Gravelines nuclear power complex 5km to the west. The pipework extends in tunnels under the port of Dunkirk to the terminal.
Use of waste heat from the nuclear plant means that Dunkerque LNG – unlike many other import terminals around the world – should never need to burn gas in order to regasify (warm up) LNG, and therefore should have no carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Thierry told NGE the first commissioning cargo is expected by late June, followed by the first commercial deliveries of LNG around September 2016.
Mark Smedley