The initial tanker shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Excelerate Energy’s Northeast Gateway offshore system in Massachusetts Bay has been delayed until May, according a company spokesman.

The original plans called for the cargo to be delivered to the Northeast Gateway offshore terminal by the end of April, but the company “had an opportunity to sell part of it [the cargo] to South America,” said spokesman Doug Pizzi. After South America, the tanker Excellence, which originated in Trinidad, will make its way to Northeast Gateway, dropping off 138,000 cubic meters of LNG sometime in May.

“The plan was to do this in reverse,” first coming to Northeast Gateway and then to South America, but scheduling problems prompted the change, Pizzi said. The scheduling revision “[was] necessary to maintain fleet and terminal schedules and coincides with the start of the South American heating season,” noted Excelerate Energy COO Jonathan Cook.

The Northeast Gateway project, which was completed in December, consists of two submerged buoys that will attach to specialized ships capable of regasifying LNG on board and sending it into a subsea pipeline system. Algonquin Gas Transmission has built a 16-mile pipeline that will tie the Northeast Gateway system to its existing HubLine system, which runs under the ocean floor across Massachusetts Bay and connects to the New England natural gas grid (see Daily GPI, Feb. 9, 2007).

The LNG tanker will tie up to the buoy system in Massachusetts Bay about 18 miles east of Boston. About a month and a half ago, Pizzi said the company tested the buoy system with an empty vessel. The new offshore LNG system, the first of its kind in the Northeast, has the potential to meet 20% of the average natural gas demand of New England, he noted.

Northeast Gateway said the system has the capacity to deliver up to 800 MMcf/d of natural gas into Algonquin’s HubLine.

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