BP Amoco has sanctioned a multi-million dollar investment for the Atlantic Basin’s first fully-integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG)-power project, in northern Spain.
The Bahia de Bizkaia project, in which BP Amoco has a combined 25 per cent interest, is the largest ever investment in the Basque country. The project consists of an 800 MWe combined cycle gas turbine power plant, a 2.75 billion cubic metre a year (bcma) regasification facility, LNG import terminal and a 300 000 cubic metre storage capacity.
The three other partners in the project are Repsol YPF, Iberdrola and EVE, the Basque Energy Authority. Each has 25 per cent equity in the groups that will develop the facilities – the Bahia de Bizkaia Gas group that will develop the regasification plant and the Bahia de Bizkaia Electricidad group that will develop the power station.
Bilbao-based contractor Babcock and Wilcox Espanola has been appointed to lead the construction consortium for the power plant. The contract is worth around $310 million. Spanish company Initec will lead the consortium to construct the regasification plant as part of a contract worth some $240 million. Construction is expected to begin towards the end of this year, with the power station expected to start generating by the end of 2002 and the regasification facility commissioned by mid-2003.
