Tuesday, August 12, 2008

CPC Taichung LNG terminal start-up delayed to September

Taipei: Taiwan's sole liquefied natural gas importer, CPC Corporation has revealed that it is to delay the start-up of its new Taichung LNG terminal for the second time, reports Bloomberg.

The state-run oil refiner will postpone the start-up of the terminal to end-September from July, and cover any LNG shortfall caused by this with cargoes arriving at Yongan port, Vice President C.S. Lin said by phone in Taipei yesterday. The Taichung LNG terminal, designed to process 3m metric tons of the fuel a year, was originally scheduled to start commercial operations in January. The project fell behind schedule as winds and waves slowed the construction of an undersea pipeline that is to transport gas from the terminal to the 4,384-megawatt Tatan power plant. "It's difficult as winds and waves are huge in the north," Lin said. Natural gas demand is expected to rise to 9.5m tons this year from 8.3m tons in 2007, and may reach 16m tons in 2020, CPC chairman Wenent Pan said in February. The capacity of Yongan, the island's only LNG port, can be expanded to 10m tons, Lin said in December last year.
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