Houston—Kinder Morgan may be able to restore service in the fourth quarter to one of the 10 units at its Elba Liquefaction facility in Georgia that has been offline for nearly a year following a fire, a spokeswoman said April 5.
That timing depends on the arrival of certain key pieces of equipment, spokeswoman Katherine Hill said in an email responding to questions.The operator recently finalized a repair plan for Unit 2. It has not disclosed why developing the repair plan took as long as it did. To date, Elba has yet to produce LNG from all 10 trains simultaneously at the smallest of the six major US liquefaction terminals currently in operation.
Elba, with a capacity of 2.5 million mt/year, is supported by a 20-year contract with sole offtaker Shell. It 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.
In May 2020, a fire occurred in a mixed refrigerant compressor of Unit 2.
Two adjacent units that were shut down as a precaution were later brought back online, though Unit 2 has remained offline.
Normally, it could take as long as 100 days for each of the trains at Elba 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.
Feedgas deliveries to Elba totaled 279 MMcf/d on April 5, Platts Analytics data show. Total US feedgas demand registered 11.7 Bcf/d, the data show.
