US-based engineer Black & Veatch has completed a feasibility study for the planned Andes Energy LNG-to-power project in Colombia.
Back in 2021, Black & Veatch won a contract to conduct the technical, engineering, and commercial studies on the Andes Energy Terminal (AET) located in the Aguadulce Peninsula in Buenaventura, Colombia.
The firm said in a statement issued on May 9 that the study assessed site suitability, project design requirements, capital and operating costs, financial viability, financing options, climate resilience, and implementation and construction plans.
Beginning with a site assessment that focused on the landscape of the area, regulatory restrictions and accessibility, the study then moved into design and financial estimates and planning.
The study’s final phases assessed climate resilience and mitigation, as well as financial modeling and analysis.
Black & Veatch said the project is near the port city of Buenaventura on Columbia’s Pacific coast, within an area designated for industrial and port expansion; it has been developed by the AET sponsor group as an independent, fully private endeavor.
Moreover, it consists of an LNG terminal for receiving imported LNG, land-based regasification plant, LNG truck loading terminal, power plant, and associated gas and electrical transmission infrastructure.
Phase I includes a 270-MW simple-cycle gas turbine to be upgraded to a 400-MW combined-cycle turbine in Phase II.
“It is a reality recognized by Ecopetrol and by the ministry of Mines & Energy that Colombia will face a natural gas deficit starting in 2025 — a deficit that is expected to worsen gradually until most of the gas that the country consumes will have to be imported,” Manuel Tenorio, the Andes Energy Terminal’s chairman said in the statement.
He said the solutions of imported gas from Venezuela or the exploitation of offshore fields in the Colombian Caribbean “are not practical or realistic solutions to this crisis.”
“Unless LNG import and regasification capacity is expanded in the near term with new infrastructure in Buenaventura, the Colombian industry and households, particularly in the southwest, will suffer the consequences of this looming shortage of gas,” Tenorio said.
“The regasification plant in the Pacific coast is an undeniable need, and we are in a privileged position to be able to deliver the solution to this challenge with the Andes Energy Terminal project,” he said.
