Uruguay gets delayed LNG terminal project back on schedule
Uruguay’s state-owned Gas Sayago said civil works for an LNG regasification terminal are due to begin again after five months of delays, putting back on track a $1.1 billion project for the country’s first such facility.
Gas Sayago president Cesar Briozzo said Wednesday that new subcontractors were hired to replace Brazil’s Constructora OAS, which in February pulled out of a contract to build a breakwater and wharfs for the terminal. Briozzo declined to name the new subcontractors in a statement, citing confidentiality agreements.
The rest of the project is on track, including the construction of the regasification vessel in South Korea, the construction of storage facilities and a pipeline, and dredging works near the Port of Montevideo, he said.
Despite the setbacks caused by OAS, Briozzo said Gas Sayago is sticking to its plan of completing the terminal by the end of 2016, when the regasification vessel is due to arrive.
There has been no modification to the contractual date [of project completion],” he said.
A consortium of France’s GDF Suez and Japan’s Marubeni won the contract for building and operating the LNG terminal in 2013, and then hired subcontractors for some of the work.
The terminal will have 10 million cubic meters/day of send-out capacity, of which Uruguay will consume less than 50% during the first three to four years after operations begin. This leaves open the possibility of selling the surplus supplies to Argentina and Brazil.
Gas Sayago, a venture of the state oil company ANCAP and state power company UTE, has said the LNG imports will diversify energy supplies.
Uruguay relies mostly on hydropower and oil to meet its energy needs, exposing it to shortages during droughts. This led the government to launch a 25-year energy plan in 2005 aimed at reducing the possibility of shortages and limit the need for oil, all of which is imported. The plan calls for ramping up the generation of power from renewable sources, chiefly from wind parks, and backing this up with gas as a power plant fuel.
