US-listed New Fortress Energy has put its long-planned floating storage and regasification unit-based Barcarena LNG terminal into operation in Brazil.
Ahead of its year-end results on Thursday, New Fortress said the 6m tonnes per annum facility in Para state is now in operation with the 160,000-cbm Energos Celsius (built 2013) on site.
The company co-hosted an event with the state government of Para and the Ministry of Mines and Energy for Brazil in celebration.
The new facility, which was originally scheduled for start-up in early, is located at the mouth of the Amazon River and serves as the sole natural gas supply source in the state of Para and the North region of Brazil, New Fortress said.
The facility consists of an offshore terminal and FSRU that will supply LNG to several industrial customers, including a 15-year contract with Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte refinery — the world’s largest alumina refinery.
New Fortress, which is developing a second FSRU-based LNG terminal off Santa Catarina state in Brazil, will supply the alumina production facility with approximately 30trn BTU (TBtu) of natural gas annually, reducing the refinery’s annual CO2 emissions by an estimated 700,000 tonnes per annum.
Norsk Hydro has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.
The Barcarena terminal will also supply natural gas to New Fortress’ 630-MW power plant, which is currently under construction adjacent to the Barcarena terminal and is currently around 50% complete.
New Fortress plans to expand the power complex by 1.6 GW and put this into commercial operation by July 2026.
Company chairman and chief executive Wes Edens said: “Our Barcarena complex is a great example of NFE’s fully integrated LNG-to-power business model, where our LNG import terminal provides a significant competitive advantage.”
In a results statement, which quickly followed, New Fortress said both its Barcarena and Santa Catarina terminals are now in operation.
Milestone moment
“This marks a significant milestone as it now fully opens our Brazil operations, and we expect to begin generating revenue in March 2024,” the company said. “The Brazilian gas and power markets are growing significantly, and our terminals give us significant opportunities to grow and expand our company.”
Updating on its late-running floating LNG first production project — Fast LNG — the company said it now expect the first LNG in March followed by an initial cargo in April 2024.
In Fast LNG, we successfully placed our first unit into its location and are now expecting the first LNG(5) in March and First Cargo(5) in April 2024.
The company said it has also secured financing commitments of $700m for its second “FLNG” project, which will be located onshore at Altamira, Mexico. It expects to complete construction of this in the first quarter of 2026.
New Fortress announced a net income of $549m for 2023, a jump on the $184.8m reported a year ago.
Revenue for the year was logged at $2.4bn comparable to the figure for 2022.
Fourth-quarter net income was reported at $215m on revenue of $758.4m, up on respective figures of $65.8m and $546.4m recorded in 2022.
Edens said: “This year was a record by all of our reported metrics and importantly, during the second half of the year, there was no profit from cargo sales recorded,” noting that all performance was down to downstream operating results.
“This is a major change in the company’s performance and a significant and meaningful improvement in both the quality and quantity of our results,” he added.
