Engineering, planning, construction of Kochi & Dahej LNG Terminal
LNG Terminals: Engineering Challenges & Solutions
Setting up new generation liquefied natural gas terminals has its own set of engineering challenges as they continue to persist even post commissioning of the terminals. This has been evident with India's newly commissioned and existing LNG terminals. NBM&CW dwells in details.

When the first gas consignment landed at the newly commissioned liquefied natural gas terminal of LNG Petronet at Kochi few months ago, the tremendous jubilation among senior terminal officials present to receive the maiden vessel was not hard to decipher. The mega five million tons second terminal of Petronet LNG ltd (PLL) at Kochi, India's largest gas importer was finally commissioned after overcoming series of confrontations in way of constructing the terminal. Large scale engineering orientation was required to be carried out in constructing the facility as Petronet decided to boost the capacity of the terminal to 5 million tons per annum from the initially envisaged 2.5 mtpa necessitating a delay in completing the terminal in 2011 the date originally envisaged.
Engineering reorientation was carried, so as to make the terminal fully congenial with the LNG supply chain. Non synchronization of the facility with the LNG chain would have barred the terminal to be optimally commercially viable which was considered to be best avoided with charter rates of LNG carriers are very high. This meant constructing the berthing facilities with deep piles to handle bigger size LNG carriers ranging from the size of 65,000 cum upto Q-flex ships of 216,000 cum keeping in view the terminal should be in consonant with the LNG chain; the jetty was constructed for handling various sizes of LNG carriers in line with vessels available globally. For handling all kind of carriers a flexible design plan was crafted by the marine contractor Afcons that took the construction work of a 310 meter long jetty.
