China’s state-controlled energy giant Sinopec said it has completed the first simultaneous unloading of two LNG tankers at its import terminal in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing.
This follows the launch of the second jetty at the Tianjin LNG facility on December 29.
According to Sinopec, the Tianjin facility is the first “double berth” LNG import terminal in China.
Sinopec said in a statement that the first simultaneous unloading took place on February 25 and February 26.
The 170,000-cbm Golar Igloo and the 174,000-cbm Cesi Wenzhou delivered LNG cargoes from Qatar and Australia, the firm said.
These two LNG carriers unloaded about 143,000 tonnes of LNG.
Since the start of the heating season in winter last year, the Tianjin terminal has received 40 vessels or 2.75 million tonnes of LNG, according to Sinopec.
The new jetty is a part of the second expansion phase at the Tianjin terminal, boosting the plant’s capacity from 6 to 10.8 mtpa.
Besides the jetty, which is able to receive the world’s largest LNG carriers of 266,000 cbm capacity, the expansion project includes adding five 220,000 cbm LNG storage tanks.
Sinopec expects to complete the entire second phase in 2023.