Mouchel Parkman’s ports business has supported US-based natural gas company Excelerate Energy in the lead up to an important milestone in the gas industry’s history – the arrival of the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo at Teesport, near Middlesbrough, marking the first dockside ‘regasification’ port and second operational LNG terminal in the UK.
Mouchel Parkman worked alongside the Murphy Group during the refurbishment of a disused jetty, which was previously constructed to handle crude carriers delivering to a former refinery.
The jetty’s new concrete bridge, built across two existing structures, is designed to hold a loading tower structure weighing 130 tonnes.In addition, through its energy business, Mouchel Parkman also provided full preliminary engineering design for the project and mechanical, civil and geotechnical engineering design services for the gas reception terminal.
The facility, called Teesside GasPort, works by shipping natural gas from a special LNG transportation ship, known as an Energy Bridge regasification vessel, which vaporizes gas on board the tanker prior to offloading into the onshore pipeline. Up to 600m cubic feet of natural gas can be delivered to the national transmission grid every day (about three per cent of the UK daily consumption).
Use of vaporization technology on board ships significantly reduces the need for the construction of land-based gas processing infrastructure and provides cost effective and flexible natural gas supplies.
The total cost of the Teesside GasPort was less than £40m, a tenth of the cost of a comparable sized land-based facility. “Dockside regasification is a milestone for the LNG industry, opening new market possibilities and options,” commented Kathleen Eisbrenner, President and CEO of Excelerate Energy.
“This successful transfer marks a turning point for both our company and the LNG industry. Now that we have a proven ability to safely and effectively transfer LNG between conventional LNG ships and our Energy Bridge vessels, our fleet can be deployed as distinct floating terminals, allowing for even further market reach in minimal time frames and with modest cost.”
Richard Lewis, Director of Mouchel Parkman’s energy business, added: “Teesside GasPort is of major strategic importance to the North East as gas reserves on the North Sea continental shelf rapidly deplete and the UK is expected to become 80-90 per cent reliant on imports. In the immediate term, the facility will satisfy local energy demand during the late winter months.”
Excelerate Energy’s Teesside GasPort was built with the initial capacity to import up to four LNG cargoes per month, each of which contains approximately three billion cubic feet of natural gas.
In February 2006, Excelerate Energy selected the Teesport location as ideal to quickly allow for additional imports needed to bring more natural gas to the UK market to meet projected supply shortfalls due to a fast decline in offshore production. Just 12 months later, the first cargo has arrived in the newly built GasPort.
