The cooperation with Galileo Technologies will allow Golar to develop a decentralized LNG and power generation business, based on biomethane. Such projects are encouraged by a new regulatory framework for sanitation, approved by the Brazilian Congress in late June this year. The new law encourages private sector management of landfill sites and associated waste-to-biofuel initiatives.
Bio-LNG projects in Bahia and Sao Paolo
The first order, stipulated by Galileo, will see Golar supply two micro-LNG plants to produce about 30 tonnes per day of LNG in a mature gas field in Bahia state. The second order is for equipment to capture and liquefy biomethane from landfills in Sao Paulo state, with capacity to produce up to 15 tonnes per day of bio-LNG.
According to Golar Power, these projects are designed to take fill gaps in Brazil's gas pipeline network and take natural gas to remote regions that lack connections, often to both the gas and electricity grid.
Fuel for small-scale LNG-based power plants used to be distributed by trucks to the remote locations via the road network. Galileo’s gas treatment and liquefaction technologies, in contrast, are adaptable for the use of scattered methane sources, which “frequently are those closest to consumers,” underlined Galileo’s Brazil vice president, Horacio Andrés.
Need for decentralized energy supply
Considering Brazil’s large geographical size of 8,516,000 square-kilometres, the country has a low ratio of natural gas pipelines that span only 9,409 kilometres compared to 30,000km in neighbouring Argentina.
“Only 5 percent of Brazilian municipalities are served by gas pipelines,” said Golar Power vice-president in Brazil, Marcelo Rodrigues. “Our challenge is to take natural gas to those places.”
Brazil’s natural gas market is being liberalizes after Petrobras, the state oil and gas company, agreed to end its dominating position in the sector. The federal government is now moving ahead with the Novo Mercado de Gás (new gas market) programme to open up the market to private investors.