A Golden moment: First LNG tanker arrives at Exxon/Conoco project
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 6:20 am by Tom Fowler in LNG, Natural Gas, North America
The first tanker of liquefied natural gas arrived at the Golden Pass terminal on the Texas side of Sabine Pass on Thursday, bringing 7.5 million cubic feet of LNG to christen the new terminal.
The Al Khuwair tanker pulled into the terminal, steered by tug boats, at 11 a.m. as officials from Jefferson County, Port Arthur, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Sabine Neches Pilots Association and others gathered, according to a report from our sister paper, the Beaumont Enterprise.
The shipment came after seven years of planning and construction, including a year’s setback due to Hurricane Ike damage.
“This is only one of many significant milestones,” said Golden Pass spokesman Robert Bilnoski. “But it’s a very significant milestone.”
Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal, just a few miles south of Golden Pass on the Louisiana side of the river, opened in 2008, making it the first new LNG terminal in the U.S. in nearly two decades.
This week, however, it sent its first shipment of LNG abroad, a reflection of the glut of natural gas in the U.S. due to both the slower economy and the surge of gas production from onshore shale formations.
The Al Khuwair may be docked at Golden Pass for as long as 15 days as the tanks are slowly cooled.
The next shipment should arrive in November, and the terminal should be at full capacity within the first three months of 2011, Golden Pass officials said.
The Golden Pass pipeline stretches 69 miles across four Texas counties and into Beauregard Parish in Louisiana.
The terminal is owned jointly by Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips Here’s the company press release.
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