The invitation to natural gas importing companies to provide Petroecuador with at least 45 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, which, as announced by the Government, would achieve the largest production of electricity with Machala thermogas, did not arouse much interest. supplier companies. These days, Petroecuador consulted 33 companies qualified in the Registry of Suppliers and another 5 that were not qualified to assess interest in the process. However, six apologies and only three proposals were received.

Despite this, the director of Petroecuador Reinaldo Armijos assures that it would be possible to bring this gas in the second or third week of December. The arrival of this fuel, which is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than diesel (but more expensive than domestically produced fuel), is key to the fight against power outages in the plan drawn up by the Government.

In the first survey, three companies showed interest. These are Sycar, Petrochina and Trade Oil Sarl. Two out of three companies believe that the minimum time for implementation would be between six and eight months; this without taking into account the time required to obtain the environmental permits required for the installation of the said facilities. In the case of Petrochina, some inquiries were made to Celec that were not answered; while Trade Oil Sarl requires Petroecuador to contract conceptual engineering studies as well as the employment of operational technical staff.

In this sense, Armijos recognizes that before the purchase of imported natural gas is completed, several barriers must be overcome regarding the logistics of bringing the gas and the infrastructure, which does not exist now, for that matter.

He explained that since Petroecuador has never in its history imported natural gas (except LPG), what is being built now is a technical, commercial and financial modality to be able to get the best value per million BTU (Measurement Unit of Energy). ). Armijos explained that the idea is to hold the competition next week. However, for now, he said, the issue of the infrastructure through which the gas will be received is being coordinated and clarified that, until this issue is resolved, the request cannot be made.

When asked how the import figure would work, Armijos commented that there are two ways of bringing gas. The first would be through an LNG ship; There are 50 of them in the world. Another possibility is through iso-tanks (such as tankers of 1 million cubic feet each); They must arrive in Puerto Bolívar and be taken by truck to the thermogas plant. The plant needed two of these every hour. In doing so, the gas must be regasified, which requires the existence of a regasification plant.

In this regard, work is currently underway between two public companies (Petroecuador and Celec) on the formation of a technical commission that will jointly analyze the best gas supply strategy and the infrastructure that would be built to supply gas for thermogas.

Darío Dávalos, an energy analyst, agrees that LNG imports must overcome several challenges. Among them: bureaucratic procedures and logistics.

He assures that this operation requires two iso-tanks of one million cubic feet per hour each; This means that 48 isotanks per day would be required, which would require a significant heavy cargo fleet, over 6 months. In addition, it will be necessary to install a regasification plant at Thermogas Machala to convert the imported liquefied natural gas into a gaseous state and thus continue burning.

Another unresolved issue is that the land transport of iso-tanks requires an environmental transport permit. In addition, isotanks must be regulated by the Agency for the Regulation and Supervision of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources.

In this sense, Dávalos says that this alternative will probably not be possible this year. “Until the competition for the import of liquefied natural gas stored in iso-tanks starts, everything is still just a promise,” he said.