CB&I and AG&P Industrial have commissioned two 60,000-cubic-meter full containment LNG storage tanks at the Ilijan LNG facility in the Philippines. The companies say Tank 1, the first to come online, is the world's first in-service full containment LNG tank built entirely of steel, and Tank 2 is now also fully operational after completing performance testing.
The facility is described in the companies' announcement as the first large-scale onshore LNG storage facility in the Philippines.
A steel tank without the concrete wall
A conventional full containment LNG tank pairs an inner tank that holds the liquefied gas with an outer wall built of reinforced concrete, which acts as a backup barrier if the inner tank ever leaks. CB&I's design, deployed under its agreement with AG&P Industrial, replaces that concrete outer wall with steel: both the inner and outer tanks at Ilijan are built from 9% nickel steel, a material used in LNG service because it holds its strength at the extremely cold temperatures at which the liquefied gas is stored.
CB&I is owned by a consortium of financial investors led by Mason Capital Management LLC.
Built without a lost-time incident
CB&I says it completed construction of the two tanks with zero lost-time incidents across more than one million work hours.
What the companies are claiming
Jack Aughenbaugh, CB&I's vice president of operations for its international business, called the commissioning of both tanks a landmark achievement and said the project shows all-steel full containment LNG storage is technically feasible and commercially advantageous, with better economics and more certain schedules than the concrete-walled design. Aughenbaugh cast Ilijan as a marker for the broader midstream and LNG business, saying it sets "a new benchmark for LNG infrastructure projects in the region and beyond."
AG&P Industrial's president and chief executive, Alexander Leo Gamboa, credited CB&I with delivering what he called "the first and largest world-class LNG import terminal in the Philippines," on time and safely, and said AG&P Industrial expects to work with CB&I again on future projects.
The counterpoint
The claims that the all-steel design cuts costs and shortens schedules come from CB&I, the company that built the tanks and now markets the technology. Ilijan is a single project, and the companies' description of the design's commercial edge is their own characterization of that project rather than an outside comparison.
What to watch
Whether the all-steel design shows up in future tank awards elsewhere will test whether Ilijan was a one-off or, as Aughenbaugh put it, an actual new benchmark. Gamboa has already said AG&P Industrial intends to work with CB&I again.
