Bahía Blanca FSRU

[español]

This article is part of the Global Fossil Infrastructure Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Sub-articles:

FrackSwarm portal Coal terminals Coal transport and infrastructure Oil and gas pipelines LNG terminals Pipeline construction costs Methodology and data notes

Bahia Blanca FSRU is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Argentina.

Location

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

Loading map...

{"type":"SATELLITE","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"400px","height":"300px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":14,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":-38.787534614264956,"lon":-62.289554449217121,"icon":""}]}

Project Details

• Terminal Owner: YPF, Leasa
• Vessel Name: Excelerate Exemplar
• Vessel Owner: Excelerate Energy
• Location: Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires province, Argentina
• Coordinates: -38.787534614264956, -62.28955444921712 (exact)
• Capacity: 3.8 mtpa, 0.55 bcfd
• Status: Operating
• Type: Import
• Start Year: 2008

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

Background

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

Bahia Blanca LNG Terminal is a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in Bahía Blanca (Buenos Aires province), Argentina. At the time of its commissioning in 2008, it was South America's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and the world's second dockside regasification facility. The floating terminal includes a jetty-mounted natural gas offloading arm that connects to a regasification vessel.

Various vessels owned by Excelerate Energy have docked at the terminal. In 2011, the 138,000 m³ Excellence FSRU was replaced with the same-sized Excelsior FSRU. As of early 2017, the Exemplar was based at the Bahia Blanca port, offering a storage capacity of 150,900 m³.

In April 2021, Excelerate Energy won a tender to reactivate the Bahia Blanca regasification terminal, which had lain idle since 2018 with Argentina at the time focusing on its Vaca Muerta shale formation as a future source of gas domestically and for international exports. By 2021, the Vaca Muerta play had not lived up to expectations. In early June 2021, Excelerate announced that its Exemplar FSRU, with storage capacity of 150,900 m3, had recommenced operations at Bahia Blanca and would deliver LNG for the 2021 winter season in Argentina. Excelerate's facility operates in a closed loop vaporization mode and is directly connected to Argentina's energy grid.

In May 2022, Excelerate Energy announced that its Exemplar FSRU had returned to the Bahía Blanca GasPort for the winter 2022 season.

Argentina aims to produce enough natural gas to be self sufficient and to export gas from Bahía Blanca via terminals such as the Bahía Blanca FLNG Export Terminal (briefly active from 2019 to 2020) and the proposed Vaca Muerta LNG Export Terminal, but with lulls in production the FSRU continues to be deemed a necessary supplement - especially during the winter - for Argentine energy needs.