SK E&S

SK E&S (CEO Yu Jeong Joon, www.skens.com) has kicked off a natural gas power plant using shale gas imported from the U.S. - a first for Korea.  
 
Paju Energy Service, wholly-owned by SK E&S, announced that it has started commercial operation of an 1,800 MW high-efficiency LNG power plant at Bongam-ri, Paju-eup, Gyeonggi Province, Korea.
 
This operation follows last month’s importation by SK E&S of 66,000 tons of U.S. shale gas from Sabine Pass LNG Terminal in Louisiana. SK E&S is the first to import U.S. shale gas into Korea.
 
Unlike other natural gas power plants that buy fuel from Korea Gas Corporation, the Paju LNG Power Plant uses directly-imported shale gas obtained at competitive prices, enabling it to reduce its costs. It is therefore expected that the power plant will produce electricity at a more affordable price, to the benefit of the Korean people.
 
SK E&S is the first private generator to directly import fuel from the overseas market. Since 2005 the company has imported 500,000~600,000 tons of natural gas annually from the Tangguh gas field in Indonesia, providing fuel for the Gwangyang LNG Power Plant. 
 
 
Aside from deals in the spot market, such as with Sabine Pass LNG Terminal, SK E&S plans to import natural gas based on mid-and long-term contracts.
 
As part of this plan, SK E&S will, starting this year, import 800,000 tons of natural gas per year from the Gorgon LNG project in Australia for five years, and receive 2.2 million tons from Freeport LNG Terminal in the U.S. over 20 years, beginning in 2019. Some of the fuel from Freeport will be provided to SK E&S’s power plants, including the Paju LNG Power Plant and the Wirye CHP Plant.
 
The Paju LNG Power Plant was included in the 5th Basic Plan of Long-Term Electricity Supply and Demand established by the government in 2010. The plant began commercial operation on February 1st of this year, just 28 months after its groundbreaking ceremony in October 2014.
 
The Paju LNG Power Plant is a combined thermal power plant consisting of two 900 MW units, which is the largest single unit in Korea.
 
The Paju LNG Power Plant has a capacity of 1,800 MW, or 2% of Korea’s total generation capacity of 100 GW, and can produce enough electricity for 600,000 households.
 
An SK E&S official stated “Combined with the Gwangyang LNG Power Plant’s current capacity of 1,126 MW, the 1,800 MW of the Paju LNG Power Plant has increased the company’s total capacity to 3,000 MW.”
 
The Paju LNG Power Plant is an environmentally-friendly power plant, as it uses natural gas, resulting in less air pollution than coal. 
 
In consideration of the fact that the plant is located near a metropolitan area, SK E&S has also installed state-of-the-art eco-friendly equipment at the plant to reduce emissions of toxic substances to the lowest level in Korea.
 
The Paju LNG Power Plant aims to limit its emission of fine particles to below 3.5ppm (35% of the national requirement of 10ppm), and cap the nitrogen oxides emission below 5ppm, much lower than the national requirement of 20ppm. The plant emits no sulfur oxides. 
 
“The Paju LNG Power Plant is Korea’s first power plant to use U.S. shale gas,” said Mr. Yu Jeong Joon, CEO of SK E&S. “By importing an affordable and clean fuel to produce high-quality cheap electricity, SK E&S is contributing to a stable supply of energy to meet demand in Korea.”