Calgary natural gas producer Canacol making LNG for retail customers in Colombia

A Calgary-based company that drills for natural gas in Colombia says it has started making and selling liquefied natural gas to supply energy consumers in the South American country.

Canacol Energy Ltd. says it is the first to offer the service which will allow customers to replace fuels such as diesel, fuel oil, compressed natural gas and propane that cost more or have higher emissions than LNG.

The company says it installed four small natural gas liquefaction modules purchased from Galileo Technologies of Argentina at its main gas processing facility in northern Colombia.

It says the modules are capable of super-cooling 2.4 million cubic feet per day of gas to create 29,000 gallons of LNG to be sold at the plant gate for distribution via trucks throughout the country.

Canacol says Colombia consumes 65 million cf/d of compressed natural gas and 80 million cf/d of propane, with a significant amount of the propane being imported from the United States.

The company says it is also in negotiation with Galileo to form a joint venture which would install LNG terminals at other natural gas pipelines in Colombia.

"Given the limited capacity of the gas pipeline infrastructure in Colombia, industrial, commercial and residential consumers not located along existing pipeline routes currently use 145 million cf/d of compressed natural gas and propane that is transported long distances via truck as an energy source,'' said Canacol CEO Charle Gamba in a news release.

"LNG can replace diesel, fuel oil, compressed gas, propane, and other fuels at a considerable reduction in price given the relatively lower cost of natural gas and the large volume of liquefied gas that can be transported by truck.''