Sempra's Costa Azul LNG Terminal May See First Ship Next Month

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

19 Mar 2008

Sempra Energy's Costa Azul liquefied natural gas terminal in Mexico is to receive an LNG tanker next month, AISLive data on Bloomberg shows.The Sempra facility, once completed, will be the first LNG importing terminal to begin operation on the west coast of North America. The San Diego-based company, owner of the largest U.S. natural-gas utility, confirmed last month that it had already bought two cargoes of LNG that it would use to commission, or test, the facility.The Bluesky LNG carrier is due to arrive at Costa Azul on April 19, and another tanker, Al Safliya, is en route to Ensenada, on Mexico's northwest coast, AISLive ship-tracking data shows.Sempra spokesman Art Larson said by phone today that the Costa Azul facility is on-track to be completed and begin operations sometime in the second quarter. He declined to say when the first tanker would dock or whether the Bluesky or Al Safliya are the commissioning cargoes that will unload at the terminal.The Bluesky can carry up to 145,700 cubic meters of LNG, equivalent to 82.5 million cubic meters of natural gas, while the Al Safliya, which started its voyage at Fujeirah, United Arab Emirates, is a larger ``Q-Flex'' class tanker that can carry 210,100 cubic meters of LNG. The AISLive data doesn't show how much gas each tanker is currently carrying, or exactly when they might load or unload cargo.LNG is natural gas chilled and condensed to liquid form to make it easier to transport by ocean-going tankers.As LNG warms up on conventional ships, gas is released into the atmosphere, sometimes wasting millions of dollars of cargo. Only the latest generation of LNG tankers, the Q-Flex and Q-Max classes, are able to prevent this waste, by chilling boil-off gas and pumping it back into the cargo hold.LNG deliveries into import terminals on the west coast of North America will eventually come from exporting regions including Russia, Indonesia, Australia and possibly the Middle East.