Tokyo Electric’s LNG Purchases Rise to Record After Earthquake
Tokyo Electric Power Co. purchased a record amount of liquefied natural gas in March after two of the utility’s nuclear power plants were crippled by an earthquake and tsunami.
The utility, known as Tepco, bought 2.14 million metric tons of LNG in March, up 9.9 percent from a year earlier, it said on its website today.
The closures of its Fukushima Dai-Ichi and Fukushima Dai-Ni nuclear power stations means the company will boost operating rates at thermal power plants and build new generators to make up for the loss of generating capacity, an official said.
“We need to boost thermal power plants’ output to improve our supply capability,” Daisuke Hirose, a spokesman for the utility, said by phone from Tokyo today. “The record LNG volume is a result of our proactive effort to build up fuel inventories.”
As a part of efforts to ensure power supplies during the summer, the company plans to add 1,000 megawatts of gas turbines by July at the latest to avert possible blackouts during the peak demand season, Takashi Fujimoto, the company’s vice president, told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.
The combined capacity of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi and Fukushima Dai-Ni nuclear plants is 9,096 megawatts, or 14 percent of the company’s total, Tepco said.
The following table shows Tepco’s consumption and purchases of fuel oil, crude, LNG and coal for March. For fuel oil and crude, the volume is in kiloliters while LNG and coal are in metric tons.
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March Change on year
CONSUMPTION
Fuel oil 123,000 -32.4%
Crude oil 126,000 48.2%
LNG 1,765,000 7.6%
Coal 90,000 -71.6%
INTAKES
Fuel oil 67,000 -55.0%
Crude oil 84,000 5.0%
LNG 2,138,000 9.9%
Coal 91,000 -64.0%
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Source: Tokyo Electric Power Co.
To contact the reporter on this story: Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Clyde Russell at crussell7@bloomberg.net.
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