In the next ten years, Chile must almost double its 2011 installed energy capacity of 16,000MW to keep up with projected demand. Chile energy supplier GasAtacama SA intends to invest between USD 300 million and USD 400 million in an offshore liquefied natural gas regasification terminal off the coastline of northern Chile.
GasAtacama supplies energy to the copper mining industry through the northern SING power grid and seeks to lower generation costs through the LNG imports. As a result of delays in the start-up date of two major Chilean energy projects, power plant HidroAyse and the coal-fired Hacienda Castilla project, some of the mining industry’s expected investment of USD 100 billion from 2012 to 2020 may not come through if energy becomes limited or too expensive in the long term.
The company submitted an environmental impact study for its proposed LNG floating storage and regasification unit, which would have capacity of 170,000CUM. The company aims to import LNG from the U.S.