Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (ENAP) has presented the project for bringing LNG to the Eighth Region, an important industrial and economic zone for the country, to the senior authorities of that region. ENAP is working at full speed to meet the timetable for bringing LNG to this Region. The project contemplates 2 phases being carried out in parallel.

The first stage, at a total cost of $39 million, consists of transporting LNG with a fleet of 25 to 30 tanker trucks daily, capable of carrying 700,000 cubic meters a day, to be re-gasified at a plant to be built especially for this purpose, probably in the town of Pemuco.

This alternative which will permit starting the supply of natural gas to the Bio Bio Region in 2010, with a volume of up to 1.2 million cubic meters a day, will require the construction of a truck-loading yard on land adjoining the LNG terminal in Quintero, plus the re-gasification plant.

Later, in a second phase to be completed in 2013, the gas will be transported through a purpose-built 430-kilometer pipeline between the Fifth and Eighth Regions. The works, at a cost of US$ 400 million, would permit the transportation of 7 million cubic meters a day of this product, as demand is generated.

For over an hour, the Intendente learned at first hand about the principal aspects of this “country project” which will enable the Bio Bio Region to diversify its energy matrix and also have a cleaner, safer and environmentally-friendly fuel which will undoubtedly improve the Region’s competitiveness.

Intendente Jaime Tohá expressed his great satisfaction for the certain possibility of soon having this fuel in the Region, as, among other reasons, “it would contribute directly to reducing the levels of polluting emissions, especially in the industrial park of Greater Concepción, declared as a zone of latency for particle matter, PM10, just a step from being declared a saturated zone, unless the proper measures are taken soon”.

In his opinion, the condition being experienced by the Eighth Region could become complicated if a further 3 new coal-fired thermal-electric plants are built in the towns of Penco, Laraquete and Curanilahue, adding that “we believe that this Region cannot risk losing competitiveness by being disadvantaged through not having this energy. We therefore deeply value the attitude of this state-owned company which will make this significant contribution to this Region”.

ENAP’s chief executive, Rodrigo Azócar, recalled that ENAP has been playing a fundamental role in the diversification of the national energy matrix since 2004 when the then president of the Republic, Ricardo Lagos, entrusted it to lead the liquid natural gas project.

“We are already completing the first stage of the GNL Quintero project which will permit the arrival of natural gas in the Metropolitan, Fifth and part of the Sixth Regions, and now we are concentrating on bringing this product to the Bio Bio Region no later than June next year”, he said.

ENAP will be continuing with its program of meetings in the next weeks to explain the LNG Project for the Eighth Region to the different leading authorities and institutions like the Regional Council and the Regional Agency for Productive Development.