After being cleared by FERC and the U.S. Coast Guard last week, the mothballed Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the eastern shore of Maryland received its commissioning LNG shipment Friday.

The Norman Lady tanker laden with 84,000 cubic meters of LNG (1.9 Bcf) from Trinidad docked around mid-day Friday, said Dan Donovan, a spokesman for Dominion Resources, parent of Dominion Cove Point.

Receiving the commissioning (or test) cargo was one of the last steps before commercial start-up of the facility can get underway. The Cove Point terminal has been mothballed for more than 20 years. Donovan said the LNG from the test cargo would remain in the pipeline system for operational purposes. The LNG pipeline stretches more than a mile offshore into the Chesapeake Bay.

Cove Point expects to start up commercial operation in early August. Donovan estimated it will take the facility about six weeks to reach its full send-out capacity of 1 Bcf/d, with deliveries to go to customers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast gas markets.

Work at the Cove Point terminal had been taking place around-the-clock so the facility would pass federal inspections and be able to receive the commissioning cargo in late July.

While the company’s immediate attention was on re-starting the facility, Donovan said it may look at further expanding storage and pipeline capacity later in the year. “There’s room for a sixth [storage] tank,” he said. Cove Point currently is constructing a fifth tank, which will bring total plant storage capacity to 7.5 Bcf from 5 Bcf in September 2004. The company also may increase the capacity of its 87-mile pipeline that extends from Cove Point to Leesburg, VA, in Loudoun County, said Donovan. The pipe connects to Dominion Transmission, Columbia Gas and Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line.

The decision to expand will hinge on the demand for Cove Point’s LNG. It “[will] determine whether and how much we grow,” Donovan said. He estimated Dominion Cove Point has spent $180 million so far on commissioning the LNG terminal and on its expansion program, which includes the fifth storage tank.

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