BG Group Wins Chilean Gas Contract

UK oil and gas company BG Group has won the contract to build and supply liquid natural gas (LNG) in Chile. The UK Group beat off France’s Suez and Spain’s YPF Repsol, although the price offered by the company was not revealed. The LNG regasification plant to be built will be located on the central coast at Quintero bay. BG will commit $350 million to the project which will increase Chile’s production of petroleum and natural gas – as part of its program of energy diversification – and reduce its dependence on imported natural gas from neighboring Argentina. Chilean power company Endesa Chile and gas distributor Metrogas have committed to buying from the plant. The plant is likely to be operational in 2008/9.