Japex commissions its first major LNG import terminal

Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) has started commercial operations at its Soma LNG import terminal in the Fukushima Prefecture. The new terminal, the company’s first, is an essential element in the company’s growing commitment to LNG and will ease reliance on LNG supplied by the Higashi-Niigata import terminal on the country’s west coast. 

The US$600M Soma terminal comprises a 230,000 m³ above-ground storage tank, regasification equipment, road tanker loading bays and two marine jetties – one for seagoing LNG carriers and the other for domestic shortsea LNGCs. Some 3,500 tonnes of 7% nickel steel has been used in the construction of the storage tank, one of the world’s largest.

The terminal will supply vaporised gas to the new 40 km Soma-Iwanuma pipeline which links with the main Japex east-west Niigata-Sendai line. The pipeline link, the road tanker loading bays and the small-scale jetty will support the Soma terminal’s role as a base for the Japex LNG satellite supply system serving Hokkaido and the wider Tohoku region, including Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate.

Soma will load coastal LNG carriers with cargoes for the small-scale Yufutsu LNG terminal that Japex operates on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. These domestic cargoes supplement the natural gas produced by the Yufutsu oil and gas field.  

Construction work on the new terminal, which began in 2014, was two-thirds complete when Fukushima Gas Power (FGP) contracted Japex to build a second 230,000 m³ storage tank and further regasification facilities at the site. This additional capability is now being built and will come onstream in 2020, in tandem with a new 1.18 GW gas-fired power plant that FGP is building adjacent to the terminal. Japex will hold a 33% stake in the power plant.

The original intent was to supply Soma with 1 million tonnes per annum (mta) of LNG from the Pacific NorthWest export project planned for the Canadian west coast province of British Columbia and in which Japex had a stake. That scheme never materialised, however, and Japex will now source cargoes for Soma from the global marketplace. Japex is willing to consider spot and term purchases and plans to be handling at least 2.5 mta of LNG by 2025.  

Soma, along with many of the other ports on the northeastern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, was extensively damaged by the devastating earthquake and tsunami which struck in March 2011. Subsequent study of the breakwaters and sea walls destroyed in the catastrophe revealed weaknesses in the prevailing designs, not least the susceptibility to scouring damage.

Sea defences in the region’s ports, including Soma, have been made much more robust in the repair work carried out following the tsunami.