China’s state-controlled energy giant Sinopec said it has launched the second jetty at its LNG import terminal in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing.
Sinopec said in a statement that an LNG carrier loaded with 69,000 tons of the fuel had docked at the second jetty on December 29.
According to Sinopec, the Tianjin facility is the first “double berth” LNG import terminal in China.
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.
In addition to this development, Sinopec recently received approval for the third expansion phase which would boost the plant’s capacity to 11.65 mtpa.
The launch of the second jetty comes at a time when China continues to increase its monthly imports and would likely become the world’s largest LNG importer in 2021.
Sinopec said the Tianjin terminal had received 21 cargoes or 1.28 million tonnes of LNG since the start of the winter heating season in November.
Earlier this month, Sinopec said it would unload more than 20 million tonnes of LNG at its terminals during this year, an increase of 19.7 percent when compared to 2020.