[Plantagenet]

Bottom line: railed LNG can't possibly compete with pipelines with respect to costs. The only way Alaskan railed LNG can compete with pipeline NG is if there is no pipeline.

Of course. And regulators won't allow construction of pipelines in Alaska, so LNG trains in Alaska makes sense.

Similarly, regulators are blocking new NG pipelines into New York and New England, so one alternative is to transport in NG in LNG trains.

Yes, it would take a lot of trains. But the same short-sighted arguments were made in the past to deny the possibility of putting the oil from the Bakken on trains---but today there are huge numbers of huge oil trains taking huge amounts of Bakken oil to points all around the USA and to Canada, even though there are lots of oil pipelines in those areas as well. Why can't LNG trains be used the same way oil trains are used?


Crude Oil shipments by rail in the USA. Note that oil is shipped by rail even where there are pre-existing pipelines. Now, thanks to a new Obama administration ruling, LNG can also be shipped by rail in the USA.

[ROCKMAN]

P - "Why can't LNG trains be used the same way oil trains are used? Cost. First, the LNG tank cars don't exist...an expense. Second, would need a regassification plant to be built at the terminal end of the run. Third, need to build pipeline from terminal end to regional distribution pipeline: cost + permit approval. Forth, ignoring all the other cost and infrastructure build out, rail transport to charged by the pound and/or volume. The Btu content of the same weight/volume of LNG is much smaller the that of oil. I'll let estimate the value/Btu content of a tank car carrying LNG vs oil.

And trained LNG will still have to compete price wise with pipeline NG.

[Synapsid]

Plantagenet,

Whoa--regulators won't allow the building of pipelines in Alaska? But that's precisely what the Alaska LNG Project was (is?) going to do: build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula.

I may have caused confusion when I said that the project would build LNG trains and an export facility on the Kenai Peninsula. An LNG train is the plant that turns NG into LNG; it's the liquefaction plant.

[Plantagenet]

P - "Why can't LNG trains be used the same way oil trains are used? Cost. First, the LNG tank cars don't exist...an expense.

The oil tank cars didn't exist before the giant Bakken oil trains got going either. Warren Buffet bought them for his railroad---he can easily afford to buy LNG cars too.

.... would need a regassification plant to be built at the terminal end of the run....need to build pipeline from terminal end to regional distribution pipeline

Presumably you could build a regassification plant where it will access an existing gas pipeline. Problem solved.

rail transport to charged by the pound and/or volume. The Btu content of the same weight/volume of LNG is much smaller the that of oil. I'll let estimate the value/Btu content of a tank car carrying LNG vs oil.

You're wrong on that one. A gallon of diesel fuel weighs 7.1089 pounds. LNG with the same amount of Btus weighs 6 pounds, i.e. very similar.

fuel_comparison_chart

cheers!

[Plantagenet]

alaska railroad gets first two Hitachi LNG rail cars

alaska-railroad-to-haul-two-lng-containers-in-cost-effectiveness-test

[Tanada]

P - "Why can't LNG trains be used the same way oil trains are used? Cost. First, the LNG tank cars don't exist...an expense.

The oil tank cars didn't exist before the giant Bakken oil trains got going either. Warren Buffet bought them for his railroad---he can easily afford to buy LNG cars too.

[/quote]

That is a gross oversimplification, tank cars have existed on railroads from the earliest times. Oil tank cars have been in use for many decades as well, it was only when the boom in North Dakota and the delay of pipeline construction took place simultaneously that they became a news item widely disseminated to the public. In the Texas fracking boom they were much less of a factor because pipeline networks are networked around the entire state. Even there additional pipelines were built when the production capacity sky rocketed and tank cars filled the gap while those new or expanded pipelines were being built.

[ROCKMAN]

"...he can easily afford to buy LNG cars too." If the LNG can't be shipped and sold profitably he won't build LNG tank cars in the lower 48.Have you figured out yet what delivered LNG will cost vs the price of piped NG it will compete against? So once again: the difference between what CAN BE DONE vs what can be done PROFITABLY.

But got lucky found cost figures that include the amortized cost of liquidization and gassification infrastructure. Unfortunately I have no idea how accurate they are. But understand this: no one builds liquidization or gassification (which are very expensive with a guarented sales volume over 20 years...or more. They far to expensive to build on spec. ANot like Chenier did and here's why:

"Cheniere Energy Inc. is seeking to borrow about $2.6 billion to refinance its underused Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas import facility and a pipeline, according to four people familiar with the deal. Cheniere, owes about $2.1 billion on the import facility in Louisiana, with $1.67 billion due in November, according to a company presentation Thursday.

Thanks to the U.S. shale boom, the $1.6 billion Sabine Pass import terminal was redundant the moment it came online in 2009. U.S. gas production is expected to climb in 2016 for the 11th straight year, and futures that soared to more than $13 per million British thermal units in mid-2008 plunged in December to a 16-year low of $1.68. The plant has never operated at full capacity, and soon after it began operations the company started planning an adjacent export facility."

And the other potential deal killer I can't find details about: how small a liquidization and gassification be built and still be worth doing. The existing facilities are huge and thus only work handling huge volumes. Which brings up a critical question: where are the source and delivery points of the NG? Right now no one has developed a plant that works at the wellhead: thus all the flared N. Dakota NG.

So let's gather the NG from multiple wells over a large area. And now you're back to the hang up you wered facing: pipeline permits.And let's get back to the original issue: large volumes if stranded NG that can't get to market because of pipeline permit denials? NY might be holding back on a pipeline from PA. But from what I understand that pipeline would becpart of a system to get NG to the SE US. IOW NY state is getting all the NG it needs from PA relatively CHEAPER because the producers can't get to the SE US market.

Obviously a very complex dynamic shipping railed LNG across the US. So why don't we table the discussion until the first load of railed LNG is delivered anywhere in the lowed 48? I'm sure we've reached peak interest on the subject on the site. LOL.

[hvacman]

RM's right. This is silly and it ain't coming here. Anyone here have any idea of how sophisticated an LNG tank needs to be? It needs to be sort of like an LPG tank, but except with two steel tank walls separated with a gap and loads of high-performance insulation between the walls. a pressure control system to vent off the LNG as it slowly warms over the days or weeks it sits on the rail and starts to vaporize - oh, wait, it will have to be flared due to environmental/safety issues of unburned NG. That won't work. So it has to be reliquified and pumped back into the tank with a self-contained liquifaction refrigeration system. All of this adds construction complexity, operational expense, additional hazards, and tare weight that the train has to pull even when the car is empty.

Even in huge ocean-going ships this is an expensive proposition per-MCF compared to CNG in pipes. Shipping LNG via train is DOA IMHO. It ain't like oil (stays liquid at atmospheric pressure) or LPG (stays in a manageable stable gas/liquid pressure mixture without insulation). Both of which also have a much higher BTU content per unit volume than LNG.