Asia/Pacific News
China Building New LNG Import Terminal
China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), the state-owned leader in the nation's liquefied natural gas (LNG) importing business, will build a new terminal in Fujian, Reuters reports.
The 6.7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) project in the southeastern city of Zhangzhou, Fujian will have an annual capacity of 3 million tonnes in its first phase.
"The project has finished the preliminary work and is now waiting for the final approval from Beijing to start construction," a company official said.
China is the largest energy consumer in the world, but only the fourth-largest user of natural gas, and officials want to increase its use of the cleaner fuel with new LNG terminals and gas pipelines.
CNOOC already operates six LNG import terminals along the east coast.
The new project, which will include a port capable of docking 260,000 cubic-meter tankers and three storage facilities with 480,000 cubic meters of total storage space, is expected to start operations in 2017.
The president of Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. (DSIC) recently said that China needs to expand its supply of LNG carriers over the next decade to meet its growing energy needs.
