Peru's First Liquified Gas Exports Ready for May 2010
LIMA -(Dow Jones)- Peru LNG will have its first cargo of liquified natural gas
ready for export in May 2010, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The Peru LNG exports will be the country's first, and the project, expected to
cost a total of $3.9 billion, will be Peru's largest foreign direct investment,
according to the International Finance Corporation.
In total Peru LNG will receive 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the
Camisea fields in southern Peru over the next 18 and a half years.
Peru LNG said it will begin receiving natural gas from the Camisea consortium
in March 2010, and supplies will rise to 620 million cubic feet per day by June.
Peru LNG will liquefy the entire 4.2 TCF of gas, and sell it to Repsol YPF SA
(REP, REP.MC), via Repsol Comercializadora for export, the spokeswoman said.
Much of the LNG will be sold to Mexico's state power company Comision Federal
de Electricidad.
Natural gas exports are a sensitive issue for the Peruvian government, which
has been accused of feeding export markets at the expense of growing domestic
demand.
Central to the dispute over exports versus domestic supply is a debate about
levels of gas reserves in the Camisea controlled Blocks 88 and 56.
Last Saturday, an official from Peru's mining and energy ministry said reserve
Blocks 88 and 56 could total 18 trillion cubic feet.
An independent study, published by intentional energy consultants Gaffney,
Cline and Associates, puts reserves at just under nine million cubic feet.
U.S.-based Hunt Oil and Spain's Repsol YPF SAare members of both the Camisea
consortium and the Peru LNG consortium. They own a respective 50% and 20% of
Peru LNG.
The Camisea consortium also includes South Korea's SK Corp. (003600.SE),
Tecpetrol, a unit of Argentina's Techint Group, Algeria's Sonatrach Petroleum
Corp. and Repsol.
The Peru LNG consortium includes SK Energy Co. (096770.SE) and Marubeni Corp.
(MARUY).
-By Sophie Kevany, Dow Jones Newswires; 51-198-903-8043; sophie.kevany@
dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-24-091551ET
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