Project Profile
Value: US$1.25 billion (capex)
Location: Montevideo, Uruguay
Regasification capacity: 10 million cubic metres per day (cm/d) of natural gas (expanded to 15 million cm/d)
Storage capacity: 267 million cubic metres
Start-up Year: 2015
GDF-Suez will build and operate the Uruguay LNG Terminal. Gas Sayago, the joint venture between the national oil company (NOC) Administracion Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohols y Portland (ANCAP) from Uruguay and the national power utility Administracion Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Electricas (UTE), awarded its Montevideo liquefied natural Gas (LNG) receiver terminal project to energy group GDF-Suez from France. Known as the GNL Del Plata, this project, was originally supported jointly by the neighbouring countries Uruguay and Argentina where the state-owned power company ENARSA was also part of the Gas Sayago joint venture. This concept was chosen for the GNL Del Plata project as this Montevideo LNG receiving terminal should have been connected to the existing natural gas transportation infrastructure, the Cruz de Sur Gas Pipeline, connecting Montevideo in Uruguay to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Crossing the Rio de la Plata estuary by a 50 kilometres underground section, this pipeline has a capacity of 6 million cubic meters per day of natural gas.
In 2012, Argentina pulled out from the Gas Sayago joint venture in charge of the Montevideo LNG Terminal project in expecting to see the development of its own shale gas resources to take off and catch up with the ballooning domestic demand. On the Uruguay side, 65% of the energy needs are covered by the expensive import of crude oil and 35% from local hydroelectric power. For the first phase, the Montevideo LNG terminal should have a:
- Regasification capacity of 10 million cubic metres per day (cm/d) of natural gas
- Storage capacities of 267 million cubic metres.
- Breakwater infrastructure in the Port of Montevideo
- Gas pipelines infrastructures to connect the terminal to the existing pipeline network in Uruguay.
In a second phase, the terminal should be expanded to 15 million cm/d. With a 20 years concession under its BOOT contract GDF-Suez estimates the Montevideo LNG Terminal project to require US$1.125 billion capital expenditure in targeting to run into commercial operations by 2015.
Owner: Gas Sayago
Operators:
GDF-Suez: Operator with 100% interest
Contractor:
CCCC Shanghai Dredging: Dredging contract
Foster Wheeler: FEED and PMC contract
Green Marine Solutions (GMS): Provision of marine operations and engineering support to LNG import terminal using the shuttle regasification vessel GDF Suez Neptune which will be used as a bridge solution before the delivery of the new-built FSRU contracted to Mitsui O.S.K. Lines
Construtora OAS: Comprehensive environmental data analysis and management
Sub-contractors:
AXYS Technologies: Provision of its 100th WatchKeeper met ocean monitoring buoy to Construtora OAS in Uruguay to receive comprehensive environmental data, which will support their LNG terminal construction project in Montevideo.