Tokyo Gas to Add World’s Biggest LNG Tank, Anticipating Demand

By Megumi Yamanaka

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Gas Co., Japan’s largest natural-gas supplier, will add the world’s biggest tank for storing liquefied natural gas, anticipating demand for the fuel will increase in coming years.

Shimizu Corp., IHI Corp. and an IHI subsidiary will build the tank, which will cost 20 billion yen ($207 million), the gas supplier said in a statement today. The 250,000-kiloliter storage facility will boost Tokyo Gas’s capacity at Ougijima, near Tokyo, to 850,000 kiloliters, it said.

Tokyo Gas expects gas sales will rise by an average 1.9 percent annually through the year ending March 2014 after experiencing a dent in demand this fiscal year because of the global recession. Sales of the cleaner-burning fuel will rebound once the economy recovers as Japan works to meet goals for reducing carbon emissions, spokesman Naoyoshi Ogake said by phone in Tokyo.

To contact the reporters on this story: Megumi Yamanaka in Tokyo at myamanaka@bloomberg.net.