LNG

The European Union and Japan said after meetings in Brussels that they were committed to work closely to address the current challenges in energy markets worldwide, including LNG and pipeline natural gas supplies.

The European Commission has approved a grant of 128 million euros ($145M) to support the expansion of the Polish onshore liquefied natural gas terminal at the Baltic port of Swinoujscie to enable regular future deliveries of US LNG.

The expansion is scheduled to be completed by 2022 and is aimed at helping ensure gas supply security in Poland and the wider Baltic market.

Regasification at the terminal will be increased to handle 5.55 million tonnes per annum of LNG, or 7.5 billion cubic metres of gas.

A second phase of the expansion will be completed by 2023 and includes a third LNG storage tank along with trans-transhipment facilities for rail loading onto ISO containers.

It will include the construction of an additional jetty. This project will be implemented in collaboration with the Szczecin and Swinoujscie Seaports Authority.

The new jetty will enable the provision of small-scale tanker loading and bunkering activities.

Polskie LNG, the terminal operator, has awarded a technical consulting contract to the European engineering company Tractebel, based in Belgium, to help with the terminal expansion programme.

The funding from the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, comes from the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund under the 2014-2020 Infrastructure and Environment Operational Programme, which has among its priorities the improvement of energy security in Europe.

“The project will contribute to ensuring security of gas supplies in Poland and in the Baltic countries by making supplies more diverse and promoting new gas transport routes in the region,” said an EU statement.

Poland's state-controlled oil and gas company is planning to increase its purchases of LNG to 7.5 MTPA, which is 2 MTPA more than the future handling capacity of the Swinoujscie terminal.

This will enable the company to conduct some cargo trading on the international market.

Under two US supply agreements, the Poles will receive 2 MTPA of LNG for 20 years from Sempra Energy’s Port Arthur plant planned for Texas and coming on stream in 2023, as well as volumes from Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass export facility in Louisiana to be completed in 2022.

The main supplier to Poland is Qatargas under a long-term supply contract that started in 2016.

Russia is set to become a liquefied natural gas importer at the port of Kaliningrad with the expected arrival of the floating storage and regasification unit, the “Marshal Vasilevskiy”, to the Russian enclave bordering Lithuania and Poland.