Energía Costa Azul (March 2008)

LNG storage tanks (March 2008)

Energía Costa Azul (March 2008)

Energía Costa Azul raises the roof on second storage tank
On Friday, July 28, 2006, workers raised the roof atop the second of the project’s two LNG storage tanks.

LNG storage tanks

Roof-raising process
The process involved lifting the pre-assembled, 529-ton, 260-foot-diameter roof structure 128 feet on a cushion of air at the rate of about one-half foot per minute. Giant fans within the tank helped get the job done by raising the pressure within the tank to about 0.18 pounds per square inch.

Once the roof was at the top of the structure, it was welded into place. When finished, each of the tanks will stand 175 feet tall and measure 260 feet in diameter. When filled with liquid, each outer tank will hold more than 50 million gallons.

The natural gas stored as LNG within the two tanks, about 6.7 billion cubic feet, could supply Mexico for one and one-half days and California for more than a day. The roof for the first tank was put in place in late June.

Safety standards
The full-containment gas storage tanks have been built to meet the LNG industry’s most stringent safety standards. The tanks’ walls are covered by 20 inches of steel-reinforced concrete and thick blankets of insulation.

On schedule
Construction on the $875 million project is more than 84 percent complete and on schedule to go into operation in early 2008.  Energía Costa Azul is the first new LNG receipt terminal along North America’s West Coast and 15 miles north of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

Click here to see a video of the roof raising.