Kogas may invest in LNG terminal in Ukraine
KYIV. Aug 29 (Interfax) - Ukraine's state agency for investments and managing national projects Gosinvestproekt and Korea Gas Corporation (Kogas) inked on Wednesday a memorandum of cooperation in a project for the building of an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.
Gosinvestproekt said that at the end of meetings August 28 and 29 the parties had put together a program for strategic partnership, the key element of which is the joint implementation of energy and energy-saving projects.
Gosinvestproekt representative Vladislav Kaskiv said the memorandum show joint interest in the South Korean corporation's involvement as a strategic partner-investor in the national LNG terminal project and as an exporter of LNG.
"In the next few days the signing of a confidentiality agreement is planned, which will make it possible to launch technical negotiations in these directions," Kaskiv is quoted as saying in a Gosinvestproekt statement.
On August 8, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the feasibility study for constructing the LNG terminal. According to the document, the LNG terminal, the handling capacity of which is estimated at 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of LNG per year, is to cost EUR 735 million.
It will cost another EUR 121 million to build a supply canal to the terminal and EUR 113 million to link it to the gas-transport system. The first project will be secured by the state, and the second will be carried out by Ukrtransgaz at the expense of a tariff component.
The project's first phase, with a capacity of 5 bcm per year in the form of one floating storage and regasification unit that should be permanently moored to the pier until the completion of the LNG terminal, will be commissioned in 2016. This unit will be leased during the time that the terminal capacities on the shore are being constructed.
The second phase includes the construction of an onshore LNG terminal that can handle tankers with a capacity of 178,000 cubic meters, a total storage capacity of 540,000 cubic meters (three tanks) and an output capacity of 10 bcm of LNG. The second phase will be wound up in 2018.
Under the project, the LNG-terminal will be built near the town of Yuzhny, close to the oil terminal of public joint-stock company Ukrtransnafta and the Yuzhny commercial sea port in the Odessa region.
Kogas is a huge LNG exporter, operating three LNG terminals and an internal gas-transport system.