Qatargas announed today the loading out of its 1000th LNG cargo from the Common Lean LNG Storage and Loading Asset. The cargo, bound for Elba Island, Georgia, USA, was safely loaded from LNG Berth 4 on the Q-Flex LNG vessel “Al Khattiya” in March.
The Common Lean LNG storage and loading facilities are built to store LNG produced from the six mega trains at Qatargas (Trains 4, 5, 6 and 7) and RasGas (Trains 6 and 7) and load Q-Flex and Q-Max ships in addition to conventional ships from Berths 4, 5 and 6 and the Qatargas ships loaded at LNG Berth 3 to customers across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Khalid Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatargas Chief Executive Officer said: “This is indeed a remarkable milestone, not only for Qatargas, but also for Qatar’s LNG industry on the whole. This achievement further demonstrates the efficient and stable operations of our facilities and enhances our reputation as a reliable supplier of LNG worldwide. What makes this achievement even more significant is that it has been achieved without any Lost Time Incidents (LTI). I would like to congratulate all the teams involved on this accomplishment.”
The milestone achievement of 1000 cargoes from the Common Lean LNG Storage and Loading Asset was reached in less than three years after the first loading from the facility. The Qatargas Q-Flex vessel “Al Hamla” was the first ship to load lean LNG from Berth 4 on 15th March 2009 during the Expansion Start-up stage.
In October 2009, the Qatargas Q-Flex vessel “Al Kharaitiyat” became the first ship to load lean LNG from Berth 5, while the first ship to load lean LNG from Berth 6 was the RasGas Q-Flex vessel “Al Sahla” in February 2011.
The Common Lean LNG storage and Loading facilities include eight LNG tanks, each with a storage capacity of 140,000 cubic metres. The facility also recovers Boil-Off gas (BOG) from the LNG Tanks. The recovered gas is supplied to the LNG trains as fuel gas. Four LNG loading berths are also part of the facility.