Dredging work is set to kick off at the Port of Soma in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on 10 October, according to the nation’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.
The dredging work will be carried out at a cost of about 2 billion yen (USD16.7 million) to allow a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal now under construction at the port to receive large LNG carriers.
The dredging work will cover an area of approximately 25 hectares and is scheduled to be completed by March 2016.
In November 2014, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., commonly known as JAPEX, launched construction work on the new LNG import terminal at the Port of Soma, the first such facility in Fukushima Prefecture.
Fukushima Prefecture bore the brunt of a massive earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011, which also triggered a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Demand for LNG has risen sharply in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
JAPEX plans to complete the Soma LNG import terminal in December 2017 and put it into operation in March 2018. The project is estimated to cost a total of 60 billion yen (USD500 million).
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
