Chart Pushing Small Scale Plants

[Tree]

By Blake Wright

 17 April 2013 18:36 GMT

LNG equipment supplier Chart Industries is testing the waters for a new small-scale liquefaction plant concept it believes can benefit both transportation markets and locales without access to natural gas pipeline infrastructure.

Sam Thomas, chairman, chief executive and president of Chart told reporters at the LNG 17 conference in Houston this week that these standardised, off-the-shelf-style plants would offer significant cost savings and cycle time reduction due to a great measure of pre-assembly and their replicable potential with multiple trains possible.

Thomas said Chart had identified a trio of ‘sweet spots’ along the capacity scale - 100,000 gallons per day (gpd), 250,000 gpd and 450,000 gpd.

The company will also offer modular ‘bolt-on’ components that can match incoming gas specifications.

Chart envisages these plants as having power generation and transportation potential in inland China, where Chart has done business for years and the pipeline infrastructure is still in its infancy, and island nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The company also is targeting LNG as a cleaner-burning replacement for diesel in markets like transportation, hydraulic fracturing, mining vehicles and marine vessels.