Sakhalin II: The First LNG Storage Tanks in Russia INTHIS ISSUEThe authors describe how the planning, design and construction of the LNG

storage tanks in the Sakhalin II project have taken into account the Russianapproval process, the harsh weather conditions and other site characteristics.

On the remote island of Sakhalin, construction of the

first LNG facility to be built inRussia is underway (see Figure 1).Sakhalin II, which has become knownas the project of many firsts, is pavingthe way for additional Russian LNGprojects that will follow.

Contrary to the typical LNG story -where natural gas is stranded due tothe absence of a pipeline network totransport it to market - Russia has anextensive pipeline grid that extends toevery part of the country and intoEurope. However, with more than47.6 trillion m3(st), Russia has thelargest natural gas reserves in theworld and is also the largest exporterof natural gas. Adding LNG exportfacilities to pipeline transportationprovides Russia with more flexibilityin its export options and opens upmarkets throughout Asia Pacific, Mex-ico, and the United States.

Because of the remote location, theharsh climate, the level of seismicactivity and the absence of nationalcodes for LNG structures, the con-struction of LNG facilities on Sakhalinpresents a number of challenges. Alook at one of these projects - the con-struction of two LNG storage tankswith a capacity of 100,000 m3 each -provides an opportunity to examinehow some of these challenges arebeing met.

The Sakhalin TanksOver the past decade, LNG storagetanks have been increasing in size tocapture economies of scale. Today's

LNG storage tank typically has 100,000m3 or more of capacity and is designedto facilitate a process that works withthe laws of physics to keep the temper-ature inside the tank from warming.The process, called autorefrigeration,keeps the temperature of LNG constantthrough LNG vapor release.

Because LNG storage tanks havenever before been built in Russia, codesthat regulate the design and construc-tion of these facilities did not exist. Forthis project to proceed smoothly, it wasimportant to combine experience in thedesign and construction of LNG proj-ects with experience in Russian con-struction, climate and, especially, busi-ness practices. Sakhalin Energy Invest-ment Company Ltd., the owner of theSakhalin II project, took the lead indeveloping the overall Project SpecificTechnical Specification for the LNGtanks, a document that provided thespecifics for what kind of tanks wouldbe built, what materials would be used,etc. They then took this document tothe Russian Federal Government toobtain the necessary approvals. Oncethe Federal Government approved thedocument, it was the responsibility ofthe contractor awarded the job todevelop the detailed design and techni-cal specifications that provided the in-depth processes and procedures forhow the tanks would be constructed. Itwas important in developing thisdetailed documentation to ensure thatit conformed to the owner's require-ments, the Project Specific TechnicalSpecification approved by the FederalAuthorities, and all applicable Russian

National Standards. It was also neces-sary to obtain Federal Governmentapproval of this detailed technical doc-umentation, since it was the first devel-oped for LNG tanks in Russia.

Developing the technical documen-tation for this work can be time inten-sive and the approval process can belong if not handled appropriately.CB&I, an engineering, procurementand construction (EPC) company thathad previously conducted EPC workin Russia, also has extensive experi-ence working with LNG facilities. Thecompany, along with the project's gen-eral contractor - the consortium ofChiyoda, Toyo Engineering, and NIPI-gaspererabotka - was responsible forthe design and construction of theLNG tanks.

The first step was to develop techni-cal documentation for LNG tanks thatmet all the criteria requested by theowner as well as Russian requirements.Next, Russian Design Institutes wereasked to review it for specific designcriteria to ensure that it complied withRussian regulations and standards. Itincorporated worldwide knowledgeand best practices for LNG tanks whilealso complying with all the standardsfor steel and concrete structures thathave evolved within the Russian con-struction industry.

Realizing that the approval processwas on the critical path for schedulingthis project, the activity required tocomplete this process was planned andcoordinated as part of the overall proj-ect schedule. The project receivedapproval from the Federal Governmentto proceed with the tank constructionin February 2004, well within the time-frame that had been planned for thisphase of the project. Once this federalapproval was given, it was then neces-sary to prepare for the constructionphase that would follow, including theneed to obtain the permits required toproceed with the project, as well asvisas and work permits for personnelneeded on site when specific skills setswere not available locally.

Building PreparationBecause of the remote location, the lackof infrastructure, and the cold winters,the planning of this project was criticalto its success. Sakhalin Island is locat-ed in the far eastern part of Russia,where the land mass ends at the Pacific

LNG journalJanuary/February 2005

Martin Brockman and Brian Rooney, CB&I, USA

LNG Vessel Port Hazards 49Robin Pitblado, Dennis Butts, Det Norske Veritas (USA) Inc. , USA

The Importance of Shipping in LNG 18Christian Andersen and Rebekka Glasser, Bergesen d.y. ASA, Norway

Tug Behaviour in Waves during Offshore LNG operations 36Bas Buchner, Maritime Research InstituteNetherlands (MARIN), The Netherlands

LNG satellite stations open opportunities for the natural gas market 28Vaclav Chrz, Ferox a.s., Czech Republic; and Scott Nason, Chart Ind., Inc., USA

Optimising the LNG Liquefaction Process 40Chris Spilsbury, Air Products plc (UK), Sandy McLauchlin and Bill Kennington, Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (USA)

Sakhalin II: The First LNG Storage Tanks in Russia 1Martin Brockman and Brian Rooney, CB&I, USA

Latest news 6

Shipping Through the Ice 12Herbie Battye , Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd., Russia

Innovative Gas Processing with Various LNG Sources 23Joseph Cho, Felix de la Vega, Heinz Kotzot, and Charles Durr, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), USA

Figure 1: The initiation of steel construction on the first LNG tank in Sakhalin

Gas Turbines in the LNG World 45Elena Lencioni and Alessio Mariani,

GE Energy- Nuovo Pignone, Italy

Start-up of Linde's First MCHE in LNG Baseload Plant 59Christiane Kerber, Manfred Steinbauer, andRudolf Stockmann, Linde LE, Germany

Brunei LNG's MCHE Replacement Project 57Chong Chen Fatt and Adimasyaton Omarali, Brunei LNG, Brunei Darussalam

Diary of Events 6

Progress on the Darwin LNG Export Project 64Doug Yates, and David Lundeen, Darwin LNG Project, Australia

Subsea Transportation of Cryogenic Fluids 61Raul Gaurisse, PlusPetrol (Peru), Vicki Niesen, ITP, Inc (USA), Michael Offredi, ITP SA (France), and M B (Skip) Mick, Paragon Engineering Services (USA)

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STORAGE

Ocean (see Figure 2). In the southern portionof the Sea of Okhotsk, approximately 40 kmnorth of Japan, Sakhalin Island is roughly 950km long and peaks at 160 km wide. The cli-mate on the island is harsh and the area is seis-mically active.

Planning the project included a determina-tion of how to successfully work aroundinevitable weather delays so that the projectwould be able to proceed on schedule through-out the year. The nearest town, the Port of Kor-sakov, is 17 km from the site, with only a gravel

road connecting the site to the port. The settle-ment of Prigorodnoye is located a short distancebeyond Korsakov. With no infrastructure near-by, all of the equipment had to be obtained fromother places and shipped to the site. And,because of the long lead time to get materialsand equipment flown in and cleared throughcustoms, contingencies had to be developed forpotential malfunctions and urgently neededreplacement parts. A camp had to be built toprovide accommodation for the crew andarrangements had to be made for obtaining andpreparing daily meals. Finally, the crew had tobe hired, transported to the site and settledbefore the construction could commence.

Planning the project also included analyz-ing the soil at the site. When the soil was test-ed, it was discovered that competent soil exist-ed beneath the ground surface. However, forthe soil to provide the necessary support tohold the two tanks and their contents, it wasnecessary to excavate up to 3 m of soil over theentire site for both of the LNG tanks - each ofwhich is 70 m in diameter - and then fill in theexcavated sites with a lean concrete.

The first order of business for the construc-tion activity was to address various infrastruc-ture needs. Two 65 m3/hour concrete batch-ing plants were erected to provide all of theconcrete needed for the tanks. While one plantwould have been sufficient during most of theproject, at times the volume needed wouldexceed the capacity of a single plant. Not onlywas it necessary to provide enough concretefor the base slabs, the tank walls and the roofs,but concrete was also needed to create the fillermaterial to reinforce the soil.

Additionally, building a second batch plantprovided a back-up facility, since concretecould not be purchased in neighboring areasand transported to the site in any way that wascost-effective for the project. This was just oneof the many contingencies that was developedto plan in advance for outages that mightoccur. The concrete batching plants have beenwinterized but still will not be able to be usedduring the harshest part of the winter.

The civil work, including site preparation,excavation, replacement of soil by lean concretefiller material, and slab construction, was sub-contracted to a local Russian company. Thiscrew had extensive experience not only workingwithin the Russian construction industry, butalso working in the weather conditions experi-enced on Sakhalin. The partnership betweenCB&I employees with LNG experience and theRussian crew with local experience was deemedto be a vital component in developing the syner-gies necessary to make this project successful.

Tank DesignLNG tanks are generally built as either singlecontainment tanks or full containment tanks.Both types are required to provide a secondarycontainment area that will hold all of the LNGin the event of a leak or failure in the primarycontainment system. The difference between asingle and a full containment tank is that, for asingle containment tank, the secondary con-tainment is provided by an earthen dike andtherefore requires more available land.

The Sakhalin tanks are full containmentLNG tanks, which are built with an inner andan outer tank that are both capable of inde-pendently containing the stored LNG, separat-ed by a meter or two of space (see Figure 3). Inaddition to providing a secondary liquid con-tainment, the outer tank also provides con-trolled release of the vapor, making it the pri-mary vapor containment system. This isimportant for the autorefrigeration process towork effectively. Relief valves are provided torelease gas in the event that pressure builds upinside the tank. The inner tanks are construct-ed from 9% nickel steel, which is a highlyresilient material for storing cryogenic fluids.The outer tank is a concrete structure, consist-ing of a reinforced concrete floor slab (see Fig-ure 4), a pre-stressed concrete wall, and a rein-forced concrete roof. The LNG storage designtemperature is -165°C.

On most LNG tank projects, the concretework is on the critical path. However, sinceSakhalin's climate is so harsh, an innovativetechnique was developed to actually take theconcrete work off the critical path and avoidthe difficulties associated with curing concretein wet or extremely cold conditions. In thisway, the project will be able to stay on sched-ule because the number of weather delaysassociated with large amounts of concretework will be significantly reduced. Also as aresult of this plan, the construction work willbe able to move forward throughout the year,while the concrete work can be performed inthe warmer months, as conditions permit.

An important design consideration for theSakhalin tanks is the level of seismic activity inthe area. Because of the high level of seismicactivity, which once resulted in an earthquakethat reached 7.5 on the Richter scale, theSakhalin storage tanks were required to bedesigned to withstand a horizontal peakground acceleration SSE (Safe ShutdownEarthquake) of 0.47g. The inner tank is config-ured to provide a nominal operating heightmargin of 1.27 m at the top of the inner tank toavoid spillage of LNG into the annular space inthe event of an earthquake. The carbon steel

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Figure 4: Pouring the slab for an LNG tank on SakhalinFigure 3: Schematic of a Full Containment LNG Tank

Figure 2: Map of Sakhalin

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LNG journal January/February 2005 page 3

liner plates will be in direct contact withthe concrete slab, wall and roof, providinga gas tight barrier. The bottom slab andlower portion of the wall will be protectedfrom direct exposure to product tempera-ture, in case of a spill, by the secondarybottom and thermal corner protection(TCP) system (see Figure 5).

Insulation also plays a prominent rolein the storage of LNG. On the Sakhalinproject, the tanks will be insulated withrigid foamglas® beneath the inner tank, alayer of fiberglass insulation placed on adeck suspended over the inner open topsteel tank, and expanded perlite togetherwith resilient fiberglass blanket in theannular space between inner and outertank walls. Even though the tanks arebeing built below the frost line due to theexcavation, it was also necessary toinclude in the design a means to preventthe LNG in the tanks from freezing theearth beneath, expanding the soil mixtureand compromising the tank foundations.To prevent this, foundation heaters areplaced below the tanks to provide a con-stant source of heat to the earth beneath.

Construction ActivityThe Sakhalin II LNG tanks are currentlyunder construction (see Figure 1). In Rus-

sia, the owner and the state and local gov-ernments provide oversight for construc-tion activities. Russian Design Instituteshave been engaged to ensure compliancewith all local and state regulations through-out the construction of the tanks. Construc-tion will take place year round and is sched-uled to continue for more than three years.

Work on the tanks alternates from one

tank to the other, so that specific skills setson the part of various crew members canbe used most effectively. This techniqueallows the resources to be used where theyare most needed, optimizing productiontime, and it also reduces equipment needsand allows for efficient use of supervisorypersonnel. Each tank has two stationarytower cranes in place, and five additionalcranes are available to support the con-struction activities.

One of the most significant challengesfaced in the construction effort is dealingwith the harsh winter conditions onSakhalin. Construction crews face winterson the southern portion of Sakhalin thathave an average low temperature in Janu-ary of -14°C. Although precipitation isgenerally moderate, 3 m of snow is notuncommon and winds are persistent. Thewind chill effect combined with the coldtemperatures contributes to the challeng-

ing construction environment. A steadywind of 15 miles per hour combined witha temperature of -15 °C produces a windchill factor of -39 °C, a temperature thatcan freeze exposed skin in 10 minutes. Todeal with these challenges, the team forthis project is led by individuals from Rus-sia, Canada, the United States, and theUnited Kingdom who have experienceworking in similar conditions on projectslocated in Canada, the upper Midwest ofthe United States, Norway, Poland, Rus-sia, and Kazakhstan.

Safety will be at the forefront of theconstruction effort, as always. In this case,in addition to the usual construction safe-ty safeguards and training, the crew willbe trained to work safely in extremely coldweather. Most of the crew has experienceworking in Russia or in other regions inthe world with a similar climate, whichwill greatly aid this effort. Work areas willbe enclosed as much as possible, and tar-paulins/galvanized sheeting will be usedto serve as a barrier, providing protectionfrom the wind. Procedures to prevent icebuild up on tanks and equipment alongwith keeping walking surfaces free of icewill also be implemented. As the steel lin-er is erected, it will provide a weather bar-ricade to protect the crew from the ele-ments. Winter weather gear specificallydesigned for this type of activity has beenpurchased. With the appropriate clothing,training, and supervision - as well as aconstruction technique that takes the con-crete work off the critical path - the climateconditions on Sakhalin should not undulyhinder the construction progress, allowingconstruction activities to continue safelythroughout the winter.

Paving the WayThe key to a successful engineering, pro-curement and construction project in Rus-

sia is the ability for a contrac-tor to be global and local atthe same time. Global expe-rience with projects such asLNG facilities that have notbeen previously built in Rus-sia provides valuable knowl-edge and expertise not avail-able in the country. Localresources, such as construc-tion subcontractors andRussian Design Institutes,provide essential expertiseand skill sets needed fordoing business in Russia.Together, these elements cre-ate the framework for devel-oping designs that combinethe best practices of the LNGindustry worldwide with thebest practices of the Russianconstruction industry.

The slab construction forthe LNG tanks started in May2004, and the project is onschedule to complete the tankconstruction by the spring of2007. LNG cargo is sched-uled to be loaded in Novem-ber 2007, as Russia for thefirst time produces LNG andbegins to export some of itsvast natural gas resources tothe Asia Pacific, North Amer-ica, and Mexico.

Martin Brockman is a Project Director with CB&I and has more than 18years of project management experience in various countries worldwide,including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Russia. He is current-ly Project Director of CB&I's LNG project on Sakhalin Island. He received aBachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and completed a mini-MBAprogram at Purdue University. He is a licensed professional engineer.

Brian Rooney is the CB&I Project Engineering Manager for the SakhalinProject and has more than 20 years experience designing low temperature andcryogenic storage tanks, including full containment cryogenic tanks, spheres,and insulation systems. In his current position, he is responsible for work asso-ciated with all aspects of the engineering effort on the project. He received aBachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Marquette University.

Figure 5: Inner Tank and Insulation Geometry

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