Bahía Blanca FLNG Export Terminal

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Bahia Blanca FLNG Export Terminal, also known as the Tango FLNG Terminal, was a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Argentina. The terminal has been idle since 2020.

Location

The terminal is located at Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Project Details

• Owner: Exmar
• Location: Port of Bahía Blanca, Argentina
• Coordinates: -38.785984, -62.316024 (approximate)
• Capacity: 0.45 mtpa
• Status: Mothballed
• Type: Export
• Start Year: 2019
• Mothballed: 2020

Note: mtpa = million tonnes per year; bcfd = billion cubic feet per day

Background

Excelerate Energy's FSRU docked in Bahia Blanca, Source: Excelerate Energy

In September 2018, Texas-based LNG company Excelerate Energy and Argentina’s Transportadora de Gas del Sur signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly study the technical and commercial viability of an LNG project at the port of Bahía Blanca for liquefying and exporting natural gas during the summer season. The companies expected to complete the study by the end of 2018.

In November 2018, Argentina’s energy firm YPF and Belgian energy shipping company Exmar signed a ten-year agreement calling for Exmar to deploy a floating LNG unit (FLNG) to the Port of Bahía Blanca in the second quarter of 2019, with an initial plan to export 500,000 tons of LNG per year to overseas markets. The FLNG unit, known as Tango FLNG, would export LNG from Vaca Muerta, one of the few shale gas plays in production outside the United States.

The vessel arrived in Argentina in February 2019. Operations at the Tango FLNG Terminal began in June of 2019. According to the U.S. Information Agency, the Tango facility was capable of generating up to eight LNG export cargoes per year.

In May 2020, the tolling agreement between Belgian company Exmar and Argentinian oil and gas company YPF SA was terminated, and the Tango FLNG left the Port of Bahía Blanca. A settlement was reached in October 2020 in which YPF paid $150 million to Exmar for failing to meet the terms of the charter agreement. (As of August 2022, the Italian company Eni had purchased the Tango FLNG from Exmar, with plans to redeploy it in the Republic of Congo beginning in 2023.)

As of May 2022, the Argentine government was reportedly contemplating construction of a larger land-based LNG liquefaction and export terminal, with a capacity of 15 to 20 million cubic meters per day, to be supplied with gas from Vaca Muerta via the proposed Nestor Kirchner Gas Pipeline.