An LNG terminal’s footprint on a map is almost never the equipment. It is the equipment plus a buffer sized by physics that has nothing to do with capacity.
What is actually being modelled
Siting studies work from two of the scenarios in rapid phase transition and pool fires, applied to defined credible failure cases rather than to every theoretical one.
Thermal radiation from a pool fire, calculated for a spill of a specified size — typically related to the largest tank or the largest connected pipe that could plausibly fail — and mapped as distance bands where radiant heat exceeds thresholds considered dangerous to people, and separately, thresholds that could ignite adjacent structures.
Vapour dispersion, calculated for the same class of spill, mapping how far a flammable concentration could plausibly travel before diluting below the lower limit, accounting for wind, terrain and weather variability rather than a single fixed condition.
Both are run for a defined “credible worst case” — deliberately not the absolute theoretical maximum, because designing against every conceivable failure simultaneously would make every site unbuildable, but a scenario serious enough that a regulator is willing to stake public safety on the assumption that nothing worse need be planned for.
Why the zone is often larger than it looks like it should be
The exclusion distance depends on tank size and spill scenario, not on throughput. A terminal handling a modest volume through one large tank can require a bigger buffer than a busier facility using several smaller ones, because the credible spill from the large tank is bigger.
This is counter-intuitive if you think of the zone as scaling with “how big the terminal is” in a commercial sense. It scales with “how much could plausibly escape at once,” which is a design question rather than a business one.
Why it is often the binding constraint
Equipment can be paid for. Land inside the calculated exclusion distance, if it is already occupied by other development, generally cannot be acquired at any reasonable price, and regulators will not permit a terminal whose zone extends over a populated area regardless of the operator’s budget.
This is one of the clearest reasons floating liquefaction and floating storage exist. A hull moored offshore has no neighbours to object and no existing development inside its exclusion distance, which sidesteps the siting problem entirely rather than solving it. It is also why brownfield expansion at an existing terminal is frequently easier than a new site nearby: the exclusion zone already exists and the surrounding land use has already adapted to it.
Why methodology varies by country
There is no single global standard for LNG siting risk assessment. Different jurisdictions use different consequence models, different acceptable risk thresholds, and different processes for public consultation and appeal.
The practical effect is that a project with very similar tanks and layout can face different required setback distances, different approval timelines and different public opposition in different countries, even holding the physical design constant. Anyone comparing why one project cleared siting quickly and an apparently similar one did not should look here before assuming the difference is corruption, politics or incompetence — it is frequently just a different regulatory methodology producing a different answer to the same physics.
Whether zones shrink
They can, when containment design genuinely reduces the credible spill. A full containment tank that can hold its entire contents plus vapour if the inner shell fails presents a smaller credible release than an older single containment design relying on a separate bund, and the modelled zone reflects that.
This mostly affects new designs. Retrofitting an existing terminal’s containment to shrink its zone is possible in principle and rarely done in practice, because the cost is close to rebuilding, and an existing facility’s surrounding land use has usually already settled around the zone it has.
What the tracker holds
Global Energy Monitor’s terminal data covers capacity, status, ownership and location. Exclusion zone extent, tank sizing detail sufficient to model one, and site-specific hazard studies are not in the dataset and are not shown here. Where a terminal’s layout is discussed on this site, separation distance is explained as a category of consideration, not asserted as a measured figure for any specific facility.