Germany is to ramp up building work on two LNG terminals to help reduce dependence on Russian pipeline gas imports, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last Sunday.
Speaking to the German Parliament, he said that Germany would look to increase its gas stocks by 2 bill cu m by using long-term storage options and buy gas in co-operation with the EU.
"We will do more to ensure our country's energy security and we will change course in order to overcome our import dependency on single energy suppliers.
"The events of the last few days and weeks have shown us that a responsible, forward-looking energy policy is not only crucial for our economy and our climate. But also crucial for our security," he said.
Scholz said Germany needed to make "important decisions", including on the building of LNG import infrastructure. "We have decided to quickly build two LNG terminals at Brunsbuettel and Wilhelmshaven," he said.
The LNG terminals could also handle green hydrogen in the future, he added.
Russia's state-controlled Gazprom sold 45.8 bill cu m of gas to German buyers in 2020 and increased sales by 10.5% last year, according to S&P Global Platts. Germany is a major gas importer given its high demand and low domestic production, all of which is shipped via pipelines.
Germany has two projects currently at the development stage - the 8 bill cu m per year Brunsbuettel terminal and the 12 bill cu m per year year facility at Stade, both located on the River Elbe.
In 2020, Uniper abandoned its plans to develop a 10 bill cu m per year FSRU terminal at Wilhelmshaven, instead turning its attention to hydrogen imports.
However, Scholz's comments suggested an FSRU at Wilhelms-haven could be its participation route back to the table, Platts said.
Brunsbuettel suffered a setback in November, 2021, when Dutch storage company Vopak, one of three partners in the project, decided to pull out.
Hanseatic Energy Hub, the developer of the Stade facility, had earlier pushed back the binding capacity process for the site until later this year, due to market volatility.
