February 9, 2018 [LNG World Shipping] - The Sumitomo group has embarked on the construction of an LNG receiving terminal at Niihama on the northern coast of Shikoku in western Japan.
Due for completion in February 2022, the new Niihama LNG facility will supply gas to both an adjacent Sumitomo chemical plant and a new 150 MW gas-fired power plant to be built by Sumitomo Joint Electric Power.
The two Sumitomo companies will work in partnership with Shikoku Electric Power, Shikoku Gas and Tokyo Gas Engineering Solutions in the development of the project. Tokyo Gas Engineering Solutions, a subsidiary of Tokyo Gas, will build the terminal, which will feature a 230,000 m3 storage tank.
Sumitomo Joint Electric Power’s coal-fired power facilities at Niihama, which came onstream in the 1960s, will be retired once the new gas plant is operational.
Shikoku is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan. Separated from Honshu’s western coastline by the Seto Sea, it has no gas pipeline connections with the other islands and relies on LNG to meet its gas needs.
Shikoku already plays host to an LNG import terminal at Sakaide, a facility that has been operational since 2010 and is jointly owned by Shikoku Electric, Shikoku Gas and Cosmo Oil.
Another LNG receiving facility is under construction on the island. This new facility, which is being built for Shikoku Gas in Tokushima Prefecture, will be Japan’s eighth small-scale LNG terminal and is due for completion in December 2018.
The installation will feature a new 5,000 m3 storage tank and a short pipeline link to the existing Tokushima plant operated by Shikoku Gas. The new facility will enable the utility company to halt the growing LNG road tanker traffic serving the plant and replace it with deliveries by coastal tanker.
Shikoku Gas is expected to make use of two 2,500 m3 coastal tankers, Shinju Maru No 1 and Shinju Maru No 2, to shuttle cargoes to Tokushima from one of the country’s baseload LNG import terminals. Okayama Gas, one of the current employers of the two tankers, has decided not to renew the transport contract once it expires in March 2018.
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