Posted on 09/07/2006 6:30:47 AM PDT by thackney
FREEPORT — A peek inside the tank that stretches more than 260 feet in diameter is like stepping into a domed coliseum without seats.
Standing at ground level, Port Freeport commissioners and county officials looked toward the lights centered inside the top of the tank as construction crews continued working at the 211-acre site at Freeport LNG’s Quintana Terminal.
To avoid the heat, welders start work as early as 3 a.m., said Charles Reimer, president of Freeport LNG.
The two large tanks will store liquefied natural gas, or LNG, a methane gas supercooled to minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid state reduces the space natural gas occupies by 600 times, making it easier to move and store.
Before taking a group of Port Freeport commissioners on a tour as part of the navigation district’s special meeting, Reimer described pictorially what visitors would see, pointing out vacuum-insulated pipe and the two large LNG storage containers that have 21?2-foot-thick concrete walls.
Riding in vans through the site, visitors saw the product of 18 months of construction.
Piles of pipes and other construction material laid in neat piles. Large vaporizers rested under blue covers waiting to be installed. Workers climbed towering ladders to work on large storage tanks.
The beginnings of the facility’s maintenance building started to take shape as crews drove pilings and worked in the ground with vacuum-insulated lines in a pipeline corridor.
And part of a large, 42-inch pipe protruded from the ground. The pipe will stretch 91?2 miles to a meter station in Stratton Ridge, Reimer said. From that site, gas will be redelivered to customers.
“That work is in progress,” he said. “It should be finished by the end of the year.”
Overall, the site — currently in Phase 1 — is about 50 percent complete. The large storage tanks will be ready to receive cargo of LNG in December 2007, Reimer said. Although it is not known where the LNG will come from at this point, there are several options available, he said.
“The project is generally on schedule and on budget for first quarter of 2008 completion,” Reimer said. “I don’t envision any impediments.”
Phase 1 includes one ship berth, two LNG storage tanks, associated vaporization facilities and a send-out pipeline to Stratton Ridge. The phase will have a send-out capacity of 1.75 billion cubic feet per day, according to Freeport LNG, but ultimately the facility will have a capacity of 4.0 billion cubic feet per day.
“Very impressive,” Port Commissioner John Richers said after the tour. “It is exceptionally clean and well-managed. It certainly ought to be an asset to the community and to the city of Quintana.”
The ship berthing area for both phases would be about 1,850 feet wide at its entrance, with the Phase II berth adjacent to the Phase I berth. The third LNG tank, located above ground, would be adjacent to the two Phase I tanks and would measure 158 feet high with a diameter of 270 feet.
Each tank would have a working capacity of 153,800 cubic meters of LNG.
Currently, most of the work is concentrated on the Quintana Terminal site, and it is divided into three areas — the two tanks, dock platform and unloading arms and the process part of the facility, Reimer said.
Between 650 and 700 employees are bused to the site for work on the $800 million project.
“It’s very nice to see a lot of local labor being used for the project,” said Port Commissioner Tom Perryman. “The wetlands area they created also was very impressive.”
Freeport LNG has an environmental obligation on the site, Reimer said.
“We have developed some mitigation measures to minimize erosion to the Intracoastal Waterway adjacent to our site,” Reimer said. “We’ve purchased 80 acres near Surfside, which we’ll give to a conservatory.”
The land has been given to the Cradle of Texas Conservancy as “a preserve for coastal birds, waterfowl, fishery resources and wildlife,” and it will accommodate “human visitors,” according to Freeport LNG promotional material.
Freeport LNG’s Quintana Terminal is located off CR 723 in Quintana.
I suspect this is primarily driven by Dow's "Texas Division" to assure feedstock supplies. They're the "head cheese" in the Freeport area.
So THAT'S the smell.
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