Port of Pecém: Liquid bulk handling is up 70%

The first nine months of 2019 were positive for operations carried out at Pier 2 of the Port of Pecém, where the Pecém Regasification Terminal is located – the first flexible liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal in Brazil.

From January to September this year, 405,376 tons of this type of liquid bulk were handled. The number is 70% higher than in the same period of 2018.

“The growth is explained by the reactivation of Termofortaleza, which last year had suspended its activities. As this thermal is a major consumer of gas, it naturally increased the movement of this type of liquid bulk in the Port of Pecém,” says Hugo Figueirêdo, CEO of Cegás.

The Pecém LNG Terminal consists of a ship anchored at Pier 2 of the Port of Pecém with a cryogenic tank that stores natural gas in liquid form at temperatures below -160ºC.

The stored volume corresponds to 80m m³ in gaseous state, equivalent to a compression of more than 600 times its net volume. The anchored ship is constantly supplied by other ships in transit through a liquid cargo transfer.

“Our Pier 2, from its inception, has been specially designed for the operation of liquid bulk. In 2009 we began to dedicate the two berths of this pier for the exclusive operation of LNG. So we are completing ten years of operation of this type of liquid bulk in the Port of Pecém,” says Danilo Serpa, president of Pecém Industrial and Port Complex.

In 2019 the Ceará port terminal already received LNG tankers coming from ports of the US, Norway, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Argentina.

The first flexible liquefied natural gas regasification terminal in Brazil has the capacity to transfer up to 7m m³/day of natural gas to the Guamaré-Pecém (Gasfor) gas pipeline, which in turn interconnects to three thermoelectric plants: two in Ceará (Termofortaleza and Termoceará) and one in Rio Grande do Norte (Termoaçu).

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