UK’s Isle of Grain LNG to offer reloads

OREANDA-NEWS.The UK's 15mn t/yr Isle of Grain LNG import terminal is to offer full-size re-exports following successful reload trials.

Reloads will be offered by the terminal's existing capacity holders — BP, the UK's Centrica, Algeria's state-owned Sonatrach, Germany's Eon, Spain's Iberdrola and French energy firm Engie, formerly GDF Suez — although the firms may be able to sell volumes in-tanks to third parties to organise re-exports, operator the UK's National Grid said today.

Fees for reloading services are yet to be finalised and National Grid declined to reveal the exact fee structure, but said it would be "very competitive" with similar services offered at the Netherlands' 8.7mn t/yr Gate LNG and Belgium's 7.2mn t/yr Zeebrugge LNG import terminals.

The UK terminal's first full-size reload on the 160,000m Asia Vision left on 2 April and was delivered to Brazil on 20 April. The first reload operation, a cool-down reload onto the 125,000m Wilgas, was performed in November last year.

A second reload is being offered to the markets, traders said. "We are busy with enquiries for reloading LNG at the moment," Grain LNG terminal manager Simon Culkin said.

Grain LNG is also considering offering transshipment services, with a view to hosting ship-to-ship transfers between ice-class vessels used to load cargoes from the planned 16.5mn t/yr Yamal LNG export plant in northern Russia and standard LNG carriers, saving fuel costs and freeing icebreakers to return to Yamal.

Yamal LNG signed an agreement with Zeebrugge operator Belgian transmission system operator Fluxys in April last year for ship-to-ship transfers, and was considering selecting a second transshipment terminal in Europe late last year.

And National Grid remains optimistic about the fourth-phase development of Grain LNG despite signing no firm customers. Phase 4 would add up to an additional 6mn t/yr of import capacity to the terminal and an additional 190,000m of LNG storage and enable the simultaneous unloading of two LNG tankers, or unloading and reloading using both jetties at the terminal.

National Grid is discussing with Asian buyers the possibility of using the new storage tank to hedge LNG on the UK NBP gas market. It is ready to take a final investment decision as soon as the customers are in place.

An LNG truck-loading station is under construction at Grain and is expected to be operational in the summer. The facility offers up to 36 loading slots per day and is expected to replace National Grid's Avonmouth LNG storage facility, which is scheduled to close in April 2016.

Isle of Grain is conducting a feasibility study for small-scale reloads with up to 3.5mn t/yr of small-scale operations. The terminal may retrofit an existing smaller jetty to enable small-scale reloads.