Methax
Region and country of operations: Argentina
Jurisdiction of registration: United Kingdom
Business sector: Power plant
Date of agreement (month/year): 3/2017
Finnfund’s financing: USD 20,000,000
Share of Finnfund’s financing: 43%
Size of project/financing: USD 46,600,000
Environmental and social category: B
Project description
Argentina is an oil and gas producer with significant O&G reserves. At O&G wells that are not connected to gas pipelines, part of the natural gas has to be either vented or flared. The alternative is to compress or liquefy the gas and transport the compressed gas (CNG) or liquefied gas (LNG) by road to a place where it can be used.
LNG-facilities are often large scale plants – requiring significant investments. Galileo, one of the sponsor of the Methax project has developed a mobile microscale LNG equipment, called the Cryobox, which can be installed at O&G wells.
The project uses LNG produced with Cryoboxes and transported ca. 400 km to a 40 MW power plant supplied by Wärtsilä and located in Anchoris, ca. 50 km south of the city of Mendoza. The power plant is located adjacent to an existing transformation station and transmission line. Hence the project does not require any building of transmission line. The power is sold to CAMMESA according to a 10 year power purchase agreement.
Main development impact
The project mitigates climate change, since the power plant uses as fuel natural gas that would be otherwise flaired or vented. Furthermore, the project has a positive effect globally on the development of the market for the concept of using excess natural gas for power generation in locations where building a gas pipeline is not economic.
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