Shizuoka Gas celebrated on July 6, 2004 the completion of its new high-pressure trunkline from its LNG receiving terminal in Shimizu to the city of Fuji, the center of its industrial market. With this, the Company now boasts a dual transmission line.
The construction of the 28 km line, with a diameter of 600 mm and an operating pressure of 6.86 Mpa, took 44 months to complete at a cost of 16 billion yen.
There is not much space in the narrow coastal belt en route, which is already crowded with two railway lines, expressways and other roads, as well as power, water and gas lines. And as a precaution against serious earthquakes, it is not the best idea to lay the second line right next to the first. As a result, over 12 km of the pipeline goes through a deep tunnel dug just for this purpose, even though this was an expensive solution.
The new trunkline will enable a substantially larger volume of gas to be transported to Fuji than by the first trunkline alone, which is already being utilized at maximum capacity because of the company’s successful efforts in developing industrial demand in Fuji for pollution-free natural gas.
The new line has a more important mission. From 2010 onward, Shizuoka Gas will start selling its imported natural gas to Teikoku Oil Company, an oil and gas company operating on domestically produced hydrocarbons found in Niigata, on the Japan Sea coast. Teikoku Oil supplies its natural gas through a 40-year-old pipeline to municipalities and factories en route to Tokyo. Adding a third party’s gas to the company’s limited reserves is a logical way for them to expand and stretch the life of their business. Shizuoka Gas, together with Teikoku Oil and Tokyo Gas, recently started constructing another leg of the pipeline, which will go beyond Fuji to connect with the Teikoku Oil line.
Recently, Shizuoka Gas built its new office building next to the existing headquarters, where all the production and transmission control facilities are updated and centralized. The pipelines are controlled from there using a state-of-the-art system.
The construction of the 28 km line, with a diameter of 600 mm and an operating pressure of 6.86 Mpa, took 44 months to complete at a cost of 16 billion yen.
There is not much space in the narrow coastal belt en route, which is already crowded with two railway lines, expressways and other roads, as well as power, water and gas lines. And as a precaution against serious earthquakes, it is not the best idea to lay the second line right next to the first. As a result, over 12 km of the pipeline goes through a deep tunnel dug just for this purpose, even though this was an expensive solution.
The new trunkline will enable a substantially larger volume of gas to be transported to Fuji than by the first trunkline alone, which is already being utilized at maximum capacity because of the company’s successful efforts in developing industrial demand in Fuji for pollution-free natural gas.
The new line has a more important mission. From 2010 onward, Shizuoka Gas will start selling its imported natural gas to Teikoku Oil Company, an oil and gas company operating on domestically produced hydrocarbons found in Niigata, on the Japan Sea coast. Teikoku Oil supplies its natural gas through a 40-year-old pipeline to municipalities and factories en route to Tokyo. Adding a third party’s gas to the company’s limited reserves is a logical way for them to expand and stretch the life of their business. Shizuoka Gas, together with Teikoku Oil and Tokyo Gas, recently started constructing another leg of the pipeline, which will go beyond Fuji to connect with the Teikoku Oil line.
Recently, Shizuoka Gas built its new office building next to the existing headquarters, where all the production and transmission control facilities are updated and centralized. The pipelines are controlled from there using a state-of-the-art system.