Canaport LNG LP, the partnership of Repsol YPF and Irving Oil, plans to construct a third 160,000 cubic meter liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tank alongside its two existing tanks in St. John, NB, the company said Thursday.

The Canaport LNG project, including procurement, engineering and construction, is 46% complete and scheduled to be in operation in late 2008. Canaport is poised to be the first new LNG receiving terminal on the East Coast of North America in decades. In February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a favorable environmental review of the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline’s (M&NP) Phase IV compression and pipeline expansion in Maine that would support the Canaport terminal (see Daily GPI, Feb. 16).

The third LNG tank was originally approved by the provincial and federal governments under the environmental impact assessment (EIA) completed on the project in August 2004 and will meet or exceed all international and Canadian standards for safety, the company said. Like the two existing full-containment tanks currently under construction, the third tank will consist of an inner tank made of high-performance 9% nickel steel and an outer tank made of advanced concrete.

“We designed Canaport LNG as a scalable project allowing for the flexibility of future growth,” said Canaport General Manager Jorge Ciacciarelli. “We are very confident in our decision to proceed with a third tank because it secures reliability of supply for our customers. Now is the perfect time to build the third tank as we have the skilled trades people on site who are working with our contractor and sub-contractors. They’ve done excellent work and have gained experience from the construction of our first two tanks. The expected completion of these first two tanks makes the timing right to construct the third tank.”

At commissioning, the terminal will have a sendout capacity of 1 Bcf/d with a peak capacity of 1.2 Bcf/d and could be expanded to 2 Bcf/d.

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