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FERC approves Marathon’s Kenai LNG Terminal import project
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
On Dec. 17 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a proposal to bring the Kenai LNG export terminal in Nikiski back online as a limited-use import facility for natural gas from a “foreign location.”
Trans-Foreland will return to an active state the terminal’s existing storage tanks, marine dock, transfer piping, boil-off gas management system and ancillary facilities.
The application was filed on March 29, 2019, by Marathon Petroleum subsidiary Trans-Foreland Pipeline, which also owns and operates the adjacent Kenai Refinery. Trans-Foreland proposed to “bring parts of the Kenai LNG Plant out of current warm idle status by importing LNG and using the LNG to cool existing LNG storage tanks and associated LNG facilities,” as well as minor modifications to prevent environmental and economic waste from boil-off gas. The modifications are collectively referred to as the “Kenai LNG Cool Down Project.”
The project will allow the Kenai LNG Terminal to import of up to four tanker loads of LNG per year and provide up to 7 million standard cubic feet per day of boil-off gas to the refinery.
During periods when boil-off gas generation is insufficient to meet the Kenai Refinery’s needs, a portion of the LNG would be vaporized and delivered to the refinery along with the boil-off gas.
The existing export terminal includes a pretreatment facility, a 0.2 billion cubic feet per day liquefaction unit, three 35,000-cubic-meter LNG storage tanks, a boil-off gas management system, a marine loading/unloading dock, and ancillary facilities. The terminal has not exported LNG since 2015 and has been maintained in a warm idle state since 2018.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy’s authorization to export LNG from the Kenai terminal expired in 2018, and Trans-Foreland does not propose to return the liquefaction portion of the plant to an active state.
Construction activities To convert the terminal for import, Trans-Foreland said it will construct the following:
(1) a skid-mounted, electric-powered trim LNG vaporizer module consisting of 10 trim LNG vaporizers;
(2) a 1,000 horsepower electric-driven boiloff gas booster compressor; (3) a vaporizer feed pump; (4) an LNG circulation pump;
(5) twelve new valves and minor piping rearrangements; and
(6) appurtenant facilities.
The project, which has two years under the FERC authorization to complete, will require about 35 workers during peak construction and average about 20 workers, most of whom are operations personnel at the Kenai LNG Terminal.
All construction will occur within the boundary of the terminal.
Approximately one month prior to in-service, Trans-Foreland plans to
apply for authorization from the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy to import LNG at the Kenai LNG Terminal.
- KAY CASHMAN
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