Regional LNG: Singapore accelerates switch to LNG: Report

Singapore?s senior minister of state for Trade & Industry and Education S. Iswaran has announced the acceleration of the expansion of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to 6m tonnes a year, which marks a major development in the city state?s drive to diversify its electricity generation fuel mix, Powergen reported on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Opening Keynote of the POWER-GEN Asia event, which is taking place during the Singapore International Energy Week (ISEW), Minister Iswaran said: ?Given the stronger than expected uptake of LNG, we will accelerate the expansion of the LNG terminal by building a third storage tank which will increase the terminal?s capacity to 6m tonnes per annum.?

The third tank will be built in tandem with the overall terminal development.

The initial plan was to increase capacity to 6m tonnes/year as part of a second phase, but Singapore?s power generation companies have committed to purchase around 2m tonnes per annum of LNG from BG Group, which is a significant increase from an earlier indication of 1.5m tonnes per annum.

The LNG receiving terminal is being built on Jurong Island ? ground was broken in March of this year - and is scheduled to enter operation in 2013.

The LNG terminal project is one of a number of initiatives that the Singaporean government has introduced to reduce its reliance on natural gas piped in from its neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia.

With LNG?s promise to bring greater energy security to Singapore, the main power generating companies have all committed to creating around 3000 MW of new capacity, through both new build and repowering existing oil fired capacity in the next five years.

Specifically, Senoko Power and Tuas Power will be repowering their existing steam turbines into 1200 MW of CCGT, Island Power Company will join the market as a new entrant in the power generation sector, providing up to 800 MW of new CCGT capacity and Keppel and SembCorp have each made plans to increase their CCGT capacities by 450 MW.

In addition to utilizing the LNG to meet the city state?s rapidly growing demand for power Singapore intends to establish itself as a world leading LNG trading centre, which will bring new business opportunities to the city state.

According to Minister Iswaran, international LNG traders have already expressed their interest to leverage off the terminal to trade in LNG spot cargoes and companies such as BP, ConocoPhillips, Gazprom and Shell are establishing their LNG trading offices in Singapore.

?Just as Singapore has achieved a competitive advantage as one of the world?s leading commodity hubs and Asia?s top oil trading centre, we similarly aim to establish ourselves as a centre for LNG trading in Asia,? added Minister Iswaran.(*)