Excelerate Energy confirmed Wednesday that its Explorer liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker began offloading regasified LNG at the Northeast Gateway LNG terminal offshore Boston. A blockage in Algonquin Gas Transmission’s HubLine gas pipeline had prevented the offloading since the tanker arrived in January.

Algonquin said its pipeline was back in service on Monday.

The cargo is the terminal’s second, an Excelerate spokesman told NGI. The first cargo was received in May 2008 (see Daily GPI, May 20, 2008). The spokesman said he did not know when the next cargo was expected.

Northeast Gateway consists of two submerged buoys that attach to specialized ships capable of regasifying LNG on board and sending it into a subsea pipeline. The HubLine system runs under the ocean floor across Massachusetts Bay and connects to the New England natural gas grid (see Daily GPI, Feb. 9, 2007).

Excelerate Energy began the permitting process for Northeast Gateway in June 2005 and received its license for the facility in May 2007. Construction began immediately and was completed in December 2007, according to the company (see Daily GPI, April 17, 2008).

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