Brazilian joint venture Gas Natural Acu has officially started building the second plant as part of its LNG-to-power project in the Port of Acu in Rio de Janeiro.
GNA is a venture consisting of UK’s energy giant BP, Germany’s engineer Siemens, China’s SPIC, and Prumo. The Brazilian private company is controlled by US-based EIG Global Energy Partners.
The JV said in a statement it has laid the GNA II foundation stone on Monday, officially marking the start of the construction of the new 1.7-gigawatt combined cycle power plant.
In September last year, GNA commissioned the first 1.3-gigawatt LNG power plant.
Combined, these two plants will have 3 GW of installed capacity, forming the largest gas-to-power project in Latin America.
Besides the power plants, the complex includes an LNG terminal with a total capacity of 21 million cubic meters per day.
FSRU BW Magna arrived in June 2020 in the Brazilian port to start its contract serving GNA’s project. After that, BP supplied the first-ever cargo to BW’s FSRU in December 2020.
$1.1 billion contract
A unit of German engineering giant Siemens has secured a contract to build the second LNG power plant for GNA.
Siemens Energy said in November last year the contract has a price tag of about 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion).
The scope for Siemens foresees the entire power island delivery, that consists in three highly efficient HL class gas turbines, one steam turbine, four electric generators and three heat recovery steam generators.
Also, Siemens said it would build the power plant together with the consortium partner Andrade Gutierrez who would provide the civil works, the infrastructure and the erection works.
GNA plans to launch commercial operations at the second power plant in January 2025.
In addition to the first two power plants, the partners are planning to work on two additional plants as part of the project, namely GNA III and GNA IV.
These power plants would run on a combination of LNG and domestic gas from Brazil’s vast pre-salt reserves.