First small-scale waterside liquid natural gas production facility in United States begins operations
JAX LNG, the first small-scale liquid natural gas (LNG) facility in the United States with both marine and truck-loading capabilities, recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to signify the official start of operations.
The plant is located at Dames Point in Jacksonville, Florida, and was constructed through a joint venture between Pivotal LNG, which is part of Southern Company Gas, and NorthStar Midstream, which is owned by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.
“Pivotal is committed to transforming the nation’s energy landscape by leading the way in how we supply liquefied natural gas to our customers,” Tim Hermann, president of Pivotal LNG, said. “One way we are doing this is through the development of the JAX LNG facility. With our partners NorthStar, we’ve implemented innovative solutions to make clean, safe, reliable, and affordable LNG available to marine and inland customers that can be served from the port of Jacksonville. ”
In addition to marine and trucking companies, JAX LNG is positioned to serve other industries, including rail, drilling, mining, power generation, commercial and industrial. JAX LNG can use its location on the water to service its maritime customers via LNG transport vessels.
The JAX LNG facility currently has the capacity to produce 120,000 gallons of LNG per day and store more than 2 million gallons of LNG.
The site has enough room to expand the facility and add two liquefaction trains and a second storage tank, which would increase LNG production capacity to 600,000 gallons per day and storage capacity to 4 million gallons.
Construction of the JAX LNG facility started in late 2016. It has enabled the first-of-its-kind, ship-to-ship bunkering operations in the United States as well as the loading of TOTE Maritime’s Clean Jacksonville, the first LNG bunker barge built in the country. JAX LNG is the long-term supplier of LNG to the world’s first LNG dual-fuel container ships, the Isla Bella and Perla del Caribe, which are operated by TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico.
