Phoenix to be hub of ‘gas-liquids’

Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd (PPGPL) is confident it can be the ‘gas-liquids’ hub of the region. So said president Eugene Tiah at a ceremony to mark Phase Two of its Fractionation and Storage Expansion (F&SE2) held last Wednesday at the Hilton Trinidad. Phoenix extracts a mixture of hydrocarbon liquids from the “wet” stream of raw natural gas,  thereby both supplying industrial gas-users with “clean” gas and obtaining a valuable by-product. This extracted mixture is separated into its components such as propane and butane by a process called fractionation.

Tiah said the expansion had increased the company’s fractionation capacity by 12,500 barrels per day (bpd), to a total of 46,000 bpd, and increased its storage capacity by 250,000 barrels to a total of one million barrels. He said the expansion was a vital part of the company’s strategy to become the natural gas liquids hub of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. “We are about to conclude negotiations with Atlantic’s (ALNG) shareholders for liquids from the mammoth Train Four which will boost our liquids capacity to close to 58,000 bpd, making us a world-scale liquids location, opening the door to yet more downstream possiblities.”

Tiah noted the expansion had been funded, to the tune of US$41.3 million, by a bond offered to local investors, the first of its type to ever be rated at investement-grade by both Moody’s and Standard and Poors. Phoenix chairman Keith Awong saw a bright future of expansion for Phoenix. He recalled the initial scepticism that had greeted the National Gas Company (NGC) in the 1980s when it had proposed the idea of a gas liquids plant like Phoenix. In contrast to cynics of that time, he now foresaw  Phoenix expanding alongside the natural gas industry. “PPGPL should expand to process NGC’s gas and extract all those valuable liquids that have created a profitable export industry for the country over the last 12 years.” Awong cast his eye towards the huge gas reserves of Venezuela. He remarked: “It is an ambitious goal but we firmly believe we can achieve it.”

If the Government is to set up an industrial estate at La Brea, said Tiah, Phoenix could provide it with liquids extraction. He disclosed Phoenix wanted to start extracting ethane from the gas stream to help expand our plastics industry. “The plan is to feed ethane into an ethylene complex which would provide the building blocks for a large number of downstream products based on plastics.” Phoenix, he said, aimed to extract 1.4 billion cubic feet per day of ethane from the NGC’s gas stream. Phoenix had already begun initial engineering work on such facilities, he said. Prime Minister Patrick Manning attended the function and offered his congratulations.