The Future

The Gas industry is the latest sector to see the potential of the Milford Haven Waterway with Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) developments being undertaken at the former Esso site near Herbrandston (South Hook LNG) and the former Gulf site at Waterston (Dragon LNG).

The liquid natural gas will be shipped into the Haven and stored in large tanks at the sites. This is to ensure that there is enough gas available to meet the ever growing demand of UK householders and businesses. It is estimated that when complete the two LNG facilities will be able to supply around 25% of the UK’s gas requirements. As required the LNG will be warmed up into gas and transferred into the UK’s national transmission system which extends for over 4,000 miles across the country.

South Hook is the larger of these two schemes with a build cost in excess of $1 Billion. This project, by a partnership of Exxon Corporation and Qatar Gas, is the largest ever inward investment project in Wales not to receive funding from the public sector.

There is also a proposed gas fired power station at Rhoscrowther on the site of the former oil fired Pembroke Power Station. The proposed new plant will be of the same power capacity (2,000 MW) and on a site within the boundary of the original station. If the project moves ahead, it will be the UK’s largest gas fired power station and the largest power station built since Drax was completed in the mid 1980’s.

The new plant will be a highly efficient combined cycle gas turbine station with gas supplied from the LNG terminals currently under construction at Milford Haven. The combined cycle plant is expected to reach an operating efficiency of around 60% compared with 38% of the former oil fired station. This represents a saving of over 7,000,000 tonnes per year in carbon dioxide emissions thus contributing significantly to the UK targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The technology involved in combined cycle plant allows a more sympathetic design with far less obtrusion to the landscape and environment. Generally there is less plant, the equipment is more compact and modern industrial plant design tends to follow “minimal visual” impact planning guidelines.

Plans for the project have been around since 1997 but the plant has not become economically viable until more recently. A grid connection was agreed in 2004 and formal planning consent (Section 36) was submitted in January 2005. Currently the project is still under scrutiny by various statutory organisations as is the normal procedure and to date, only a handful of public objections have been raised with the project generally well received by the local community. The outcome of the application should be known, hopefully by autumn this year.

The construction programme is planned to take 42 months from first ground works to completion with a total peak workforce of around 1,550 of which approximately one third are estimated to be local contractors. It is hoped that much of the skilled labour currently employed on the LNG terminal construction at Milford Haven could transfer as the rolling work schedules progress.