OREANDA-NEWS. Peru's LNG export facility returned to full production 14 February after nearly a month of delays.

Peru LNG, operated by US firm Hunt Oil, was forced to stop production on 19 January after a rupture in the Camisea liquids pipeline interrupted supply of both natural gas and gas liquids.

Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP), led by Argentina's Tecgas, said on 2 February that the leak in the 560km (348mi) liquids pipeline had been repaired, but gas supply was directed first to companies meeting domestic demand for power generation and LPG production. The incident with the liquids pipeline did not affect LPG production at a fractionating plant operated by Argentina's Pluspetrol.

Sources close to Peru LNG told Argus today that gas supply was restarted at the end of last week and LNG production resumed on 14 February. It will take around 10 days for the next shipment of LNG to leave the export terminal for Mexico's Manzanillo port. Peru LNG's last shipment was 16 January.

The facility has dispatched 308 shipments of LNG since starting operations in June 2010.

Peru LNG, South America's only liquefaction plant, has a capacity to produce 4.4m t/yr. Around 65pc of shipments go to Mexico under an agreement with Mexican state-owned utility CFE. Three of the four shipments dispatched so far this year went to Manzanillo. The other went to Spain.

In addition to Hunt Oil, Peru LNG includes Japan's Marubeni, South Korea's SK and Shell.

Peru's government said in late January that it had started negotiations to modify the contract for the country's exportable gas resources. Energy minister Rosa Maria Ortiz said the state's oil and gas promotion agency Perupetro would broker talks with the Pluspetrol-led Camisea consortium and LNG marketer Shell to come up with better contract conditions for block 56, the smaller of two blocks that form the Camisea gas project.

Block 56 provides the feedstock to Peru LNG. It has proven reserves of slightly more than 3 trillion ft3.