Kinder Morgan's Elba Liquefaction facility in Georgia placed the last of its 10 production units in service Aug. 27, raising total capacity to 2.5 million mt/year at the smallest of the six major US LNG export terminals, the operator said.
One of the units, while previously declared ready for service, remained offline due to damage from a fire in May.
Elba, which is supported by a 20-year contract with sole offtaker Shell, shipped its first cargo in December 2019.
The terminal near Savannah -- originally built to import LNG and later converted to handle exports after the US shale revolution -- utilizes Shell's Movable Modular Liquefaction System design. Kinder Morgan is the majority owner in a joint venture that holds the terminal, while investment funds managed by EIG Global Energy Partners have a 49% stake.
Normally, it could take as long as 100 days for each of the trains at Elba, with nameplate capacity of around 33 MMcf/d, to fill a standard LNG cargo, S&P Global Platts Analytics data show. By comparison, a single train at Cheniere Energy 's Sabine Pass in Louisiana could fill a standard LNG cargo in just under six days.
Kinder Morgan's declaration of in-service for the last of its 10 units followed approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It was Unit 7 that was the last to be placed in service, as the operator had not been completing units in order.
The commission said the company has demonstrated that the last train to be completed is in compliance with the federal regulator's approval order and can be expected to operate safely. FERC staff added that the earlier fire was not connected to the operations of Unit 7.
The fire at Elba in mid-May occurred in a mixed refrigerant compressor of Unit 2. Two adjacent units that were shut down as a precaution were later brought back online. Kinder Morgan's investigation into the cause of the fire remained in progress as of Aug. 17, when the company issued a statement reiterating that once the probe was complete it would be able to provide more information on a timeline for restarting Unit 2. On Aug. 27, the spokeswoman did not provide an update beyond saying the unit remained offline.
