Royal College 57 GROUP MEMBER – NALIN GUNASEKERA – Introducing LNG to Sri Lanka’s energy mix

Source:-imarest

First lecture presentation for the Year 2016/2017 of the IMarEST Sri Lanka Branch was held at the Organisation of Professionals Association (OPA) Auditorium on 28th March 2017. The presentation on “Introducing LNG to Sri Lanka’s energy mix” was resourced by Mr Nalin Gunasekara.

Mr Nalin Gunasekera Graduated in Engineering at University of Ceylon ,and at University College London as a post graduate Colombo Plan Scholar. He is a Chartered Engineer and an Independent Energy Consultant, previously worked with Royal Dutch/ Shell Group Upstream Exploration and Production project development.

Synopsis of the presentation

Mr Nalin Gunasekera explained the impact of global energy mixes as forecast up to 2035, the reasons for LNG being the game changer, process of securing these floating system units, the rewards and the high risks associated with these units with highly complex contracts under multiple jurisdictions. He also explained some technical complexities, technologies in making them environmentally acceptable, risk mitigation measures to governments, the wider application of FSRUs in LNG marine fuel bunkering (forecast up to 2035) mandated under IMO’s new regulations, which spread the risks to the investors and the innovative FSRU concepts and business models in making them more appealing to the financiers. The realistic potential tie in of the Mannar basin gas field will be explained to lower the risk profile. Ides in making these projects safer will be presented, given the number of these projects being delayed due to safety reasons and unable to access finance. Typical commercial terms were presented. Some current feasible business models were illustrated, making progress elsewhere.

Reasons for failure of some of these regasification projects were illustrated and the ‘lessons learnt’ from over 30 years in floating systems by the industry were noted. Although about 75 FSRU units are being planned globally, only about 10 to 15 of these are expected to reach fruition in the next few years. A short movie of a possible ‘look alike’ of the proposed FSRU in Sri Lanka was shown.

Members of the Institute, Compny of Master Mariners (CMM), Society of Chief Engineers Marine(SOCEM) and Students from the Maritime training Institutes were present.