Peru LNG halts production, citing compressor problem

The Peru LNG consortium has suspended operations at its natural gas liquefaction plant in Pampa Melchorita, citing an issue with one of its compressors.

Jeanne Phillips, a senior vice-president at Hunt Oil, the leader of Peru LNG, confirmed the shutdown last week. In an email to S&P Global Platts, she indicated that the consortium had taken the plant offline on or about May 7.

Phillips said that Peru LNG hoped to resume operations in the near future and stressed that the group was determined to resolve the problem with its compressor. “Peru LNG is working tirelessly to repair the issue and to restore the plant to full operation by the end of this month,” she wrote.

As of press time, it was not clear whether the consortium would be able to load any cargoes for export this month. Peru LNG typically produces enough LNG to load four or five cargoes per month, but it only loaded three cargoes in April, according to Platts.

The group’s members include US-based Hunt Oil along with three other companies. Equity is divided between Hunt Oil, with 50%; SK Energy (South Korea), 20%; Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands), 20%, and Marubeni (Japan), 10%. Shell acquired its stake in 2014 and takes 100% of Peru LNG’s production.

The Pampa Melchorita LNG complex, built at a cost of $3.8bn, includes a 4.45mn tonne per year (tpy) gas liquefaction plant built by US-based Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. (CBI), along with a marine terminal constructed by a consortium known as CDB. (This group includes Italy’s Saipem, Luxemburg’s Jan de Nul and Brazil’s Odebrecht.)

The complex also includes a storage depot with two 130,000-cubic metre tanks and a 34-inch (860-mm) natural gas pipeline. This pipeline handles gas from fields in the Cusco region that are being developed by YPF, Argentina’s NOC and Repsol of Spain. The link runs for 408 km from Chiquintirca, a town in the Ayacucho region, to the LNG plant.