Small-scale liquefied natural gas player Avenir LNG is set to offer additional services at Colombia’s import terminal in Cartagena, including the reloading of small liquefied natural gas cargoes for distribution throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, writes Julia Martinez.

“This is the small-scale market, which is in its infancy,” Hoegh LNG chief executive and Avenir LNG board member Sveinung Stohle told Upstream.

“In our view, this is the import solution that the market wants, not land-based facilities.”

Avenir LNG, along with Colombia’s SPEC, Calamari LNG and Hoegh LNG, will work together to reload small LNG cargoes from the floating storage and regasification unit Hoegh Grace for delivery across the Caribbean.

Other services include providing a cool-down option for conventional LNG carriers passing through the Panama Canal as they return from delivering cargoes in the Asia market.

The goal is to build up a regional LNG hub for the Caribbean and Latin American market, using the import terminal in Cartagena as a starting point.

The company is also eyeing a possible upcoming tender in 2023 or 2024 by Colombia’s government for an FSRU, about the same size as the Hoegh Grace, off Buenaventura to gain access to the Pacific market.

For countries like Colombia that are looking to import LNG but want to have something available within a year or two, an FSRU is the only solution, Stohle said.

He added that the main driver for the small-scale LNG market is the push toward decarbonisation.

“From my perspective as the chief executive of this company, when you look at the future, if decarbonisation is not in your vocabulary already you better make sure that it is because really that’s where the world is moving,” Stohle said.

Another driver is the opening of a new market segment as FSRUs for some locations are “simply too big” so operators must reduce the size of the LNG cargoes and terminals to make projects more economic.

“And for that, the Hoegh Grace and Colombia is perfectly geographically located,” Stohle said. “We are making a groundbreaking development.”

The FSRU arrived in 2016 and was chartered by SPEC to provide regasification capacity of 500 million cubic feet per day, with the ability to store 170,000 cubic metres of LNG.

The Hoegh Grace has a 20-year contract with SPEC, with options to reduce the term to five, 10 or 15 years.

The facility also includes a 9.2-kilometre gas pipeline connecting to the country’s national gas grid.

Avenir LNG was created in 2018 with help from a $182 million joint commitment from Hoegh LNG, Stolt-Nielsen, and Golar LNG.

Both Hoegh and Golar hold a 25% share in the company, with Stolt-Nielsen on the remaining 50%.

The small-scale LNG player currently has six small LNG carriers on order — two 7500-cubic metre vessels at Keppel Singmarine, plus two 7500-cubic metre carriers and two 20,000-cubic metre vessels at Nantong CIMC Sinopacific Offshore & Engineering.

Weekly

Avenir LNG and partners to use Hoegh Grace FSRU at Cartagena