South Hook LNG terminal is an LNG regasification terminal near Milford Haven and is the largest LNG terminal in Europe.[1] Together with the smaller Dragon LNG terminal it can handle up to 25% of the UK's gas requirement. The first tanker docked on 20 March 2009.[2][3][4]
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The project was announced in April 2003. The terminal was located at the former Esso refinery at South Hook.[5]
The terminal is built to store and re-gasify liquefied natural gas imported from the Qatargas II LNG plant in Qatar.[6] in the five storage tanks based at the site, the tanks are of a large size; 94 metres in circumference and 31 metres high rising a further 12 metres at the top.[7] The regasified natural gas is to be fed through the South Wales Gas Pipeline to the national gas network at Tirley, Gloucestershire.
The terminal is owned and operated by the by South Hook LNG Terminal Company Ltd, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum LNG Services (QG II) Ltd. (67.5%), ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Terminal Company Ltd. (24.15%) and ELF Petroleum UK Limited (8.35%).[6]
Droning and vibration from the Qatargas Q-Flex and Q-Max vessels also cause noise nuisance to local residents who have formed a community group to pressure the South Hook LNG Terminal and Qatargas to comment on the issue. A trial of new exhaust silencers has been implemnted but they are not producing a significant improvement in low level frequency mitigation.
Because of the long running noise and vibration issues Local communities are forming a number of pressure groups to encourage the South Hook Terminal, Qatar gas and regulatory Authorities to carry out further assessments and enforcement. The aim of these groups is not to try to close the terminal down, but to encourage a better integration into the community by using quiet ships. [8]
There is an ongoing controversy over the safety of the site spearheaded by the Safe Haven group. It is claimed by Safe Haven that in case of gas ignition, it could endanger twenty thousand lives and that there are concerns that sufficient risk assessments had not been carried out into the possibility of a collision or major incident at the port.[1] [9]