What is LNG and how is EDL using it to provide power to the remote West Kimberley?
West Kimberley is the area in the north west of Western Australia with the fast growing town of Broome and with the communities at Derby, Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. Until recently these towns relied on heavy subsidies to cover the very expensive diesel power stations. EDL won a competitive tender in 2003 to transfer electricity supplies to mostly clean efficient LNG powered gas engines. The project involves purchasing pipeline gas at Karratha, some 1000 km from Broome and 1500 km from Halls Creek, and processing this at the Karratha LNG plant, a relatively small (200 tonnes per day) cryogenic facility. LNG consists of nearly pure methane and all longer chain hydrocarbons liquefy early in the cooling process and are removed. The very low temperature LNG has substantial energy density which makes long distance truck transportation practical. Triple road train configurations are used in an airline scheduling style operation to transfer LNG to shorter term storages in the remote tow
