China’s Beijing Gas said it has delivered another cargo to PetroChina’s Tangshan LNG import terminal in the port of Caofeidian in Hebei province, ahead of the winter heating season.
The 165,500-cbm Methane Spirit unloaded about 62,998 tons of LNG to the Tangshan facility on October 2, according to a statement by Beijing Gas.
Its AIS data shows that it had previously loaded the cargo at the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas.
Beijing Gas, which is developing the Tianjin Nangang import terminal, says this is the second cargo the firm had delivered to the Tangshan facility this year.
Previously, the 173,400-cbm British Achiever delivered a cargo on September 2. This shipment totaled 68,000 tonnes or about 152,000 cbm. It marked the first directly purchased LNG cargo by Beijing Gas.
“Emergency supply”
The state-owned firm said these cargoes would help fill two 160,000-cbm “emergency supply” LNG tanks at the terminal.
Moreover, these supplies would provide gas supply during the winter heating period to Beijing city, located about 200 kilometers from the facility, Bejing Gas said.
Platts recently said that Asian spot LNG price surged to a record high of $34.47/MMBtu, boosted by strong winter restocking demand among Asian end-users, including in China.
Prior to these supplies, Beijing Gas had signed a terminal use agreement with Tangshan LNG terminal, laying the foundation for the “smooth implementation of winter supply,” it said.
China’s state-owned energy giant CNPC recently said its unit PetroChina has launched four new storage tanks at the Tangshan LNG import terminal.
The four 160,000-cbm LNG storage tanks are part of a new expansion phase and add to the four existing tanks at the import facility.
CNPC’s unit PetroChina Jingtang LNG operates the facility with a 51 percent stake while Beijing Gas has 29 percent and Hebei Natural Gas owns the rest.
The facility delivers regasified LNG via a large pipeline to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. It also supplies LNG via trucks.