State-owned Dubai Supply Authority (Dusup) has completed the commissioning of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal at Jebel Ali port, according to a 3 December statement.

The new facility will supplement the emirate’s existing supplies of natural gas during summer peak demand. UK-Dutch oil major Shell delivered the first cargo to the facility on 3 December and will provide most of the facility’s LNG from its global portfolio, in particular from its assets in Qatar.

Dusup, which owns the gas pipeline network in the emirate and has sole rights to supply gas users, selected Shell in 2008 as adviser and project manager for the development phase of the scheme.

The company chartered an existing LNG tanker, the Golar Freeze from Golar LNG Company, and converted it into a floating storage and regasificatiiion unit, which will be permanently mooring offshore at the port. LNG tankers will moor alongside the Golar Freeze to offload their cargo before it is sent via a subsea pipeline to Dubai’s gas network.

The Golar Freeze has a regasification capacity of 3 million tonnes a year, the equivalent of 400 million cubic feet a day of gas.

Geneva-registered Archirodon Construction Overseas was awarded the $55m contract to build the LNG regasification terminal in January 2009. The works involved loading and unloading mooring facilities, cranes and jetties, and a 1.5-kilometre-long sub-sea pipeline (MEED 11:1:09).