CNOOC Plans to Open up LNG Terminals in Guangdong

According to sources, CNOOC Gas & Power recently is planning to open up several of its LNG terminals in Guangdong to the third-party importers as a demonstration pilot. On May 29, the provincial government of Guangdong Province issued the Opinion on Deepening Institutional Reform to Promote Natural Gas Utilization, indicating to increase LNG terminals’ utilization by opening up SOEs’ terminals to third parties.

As heard from CNOOC, the company plans to open up two of its terminals to shareholders within 2018, namely 3.5 Mtpa Zhuhai Terminal in Q3 and 6.7 Mtpa Dapeng Terminal in Q4. Those two terminals have complex share structures. For instant, there are eight shareholders of Zhuhai Terminal, and CNOOC only took up 30%. The rest shareholders are mostly local gas companies or energy investment companies, which all have demand for LNG. Upon the opening up, those minor shareholders will turn their position in the company from investors to operators, and their share proportion will bring them the LNG import quota at around 2.5 Mtpa. At another terminal, Dapeng Terminal, CNOOC only took up 33% of the share equity. It is alleged that by the end of 2018, Dapeng Terminal will add other shareholders to its open-up list right after CNOOC and BP, and those eight minor shareholders will share the LNG import quota at around 1 Mtpa then.

Besides, CNOOC has a preliminary plan to use its newly operated 4 Mtpa Diefu Terminal (which will enter commissioning operation from the end of July in line with its fist LNGC arrival) before the next winter heating season to increase its peak-shaving capacity, but the interconnection pipeline is still on the blueprint. Till now, no feasible plan is nailed in practice, but it is heard that National Energy Administration and its Guangdong subsidiary are working on it right now, so as to increase natural gas supply as much as possible in fear of the possible supply deficit in 2018 winter.