LNG

A German onshore LNG import terminal project has formally started construction using Spanish regasification terminal expertise at Stade, on the Elbe Estuary between Hamburg and Cuxhaven.

The project called the Hanseatic Energy Hub has just held a ground-breaking ceremony at the site of the project and attended by executives of the venture and politicians

Enagás, the Spanish LNG terminal owner, is backing the Stade LNG terminal along with the Hamburg-based terminals and storage company, the Buss Group GmbH along with the main customer, the multinational Dow chemicals group. Another shareholder si the Partners Group infrastructure fund.

The Hanseatic Hub event speakers included the Chief Minister of the German state of Lower Saxony, Stefan Weil, and Jozef Síkela, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, a member of the 27-nation European Union that will hold regasification capacity at the German facility.

“Following the first floating LNG terminal, Germany’s first land-based liquefied natural gas terminal is now also being built in Lower Saxony,” said Weil in reference to the Wilhelmshaven floating terminal on the state’s North Sea Coast.

Federal role

“Our federal state is playing a key role in the expansion of infrastructure to import energy,” said Lower Saxony Minister Weil.

The statement continued that besides the two German energy and utility companies, EnBW and SEFE GmbH, which have respectively booked annual capacities of 6 billion cubic metres and 4 Bcm at the Stade terminal, so has the Czech energy company ČEZ, which has secured long-term import rights for 2 Bcm per annum.

Czech Minister Síkela said his country was looking forward to receiving its own LNG supplies via the Stade onshore terminal.

“We are constantly working to ensure the best possible future for our energy industry in the Czech Republic,” Síkela explained.

“Capacities for importing LNG from overseas are also an essential part of all this. After securing capacity in the floating LNG terminal in the Netherlands, we also managed last autumn in cooperation with ČEZ to secure capacity in the first German land-based terminal, Stade,” he added.

Czech energy security

“In three years it will contribute to covering up to a third of today's Czech consumption. Thanks to the convenient location, the terminal can also contribute to the reduction of fees for transporting gas to the Czech Republic,” Síkela stated.

Jan Themlitz, Chief Executive of the Hanseatic Hub project at Stade said that “after six years of planning and permitting”, the construction phase has now started.

“Privately initiated and funded we are benefiting from the vast experience of our shareholders. Partners Group is one of the largest private investors in the infrastructure sector and Enagás, Europe’s leading LNG-terminal operator, will be assuming operational responsibility and is teaming up with Dow, the ideal industrial partner on the site in Stade,” said Themlitz.

“As an initiator, the Buss Group has also played a key role in driving the project forward and bringing the shareholder-team together,” the CEO added.

Spanish role

Técnicas Reunidas, the Madrid-based engineering company, will provide Spanish expertise in leading the construction consortium for the terminal with completion set for 2027.

A Spaniard, Alejandro Marjalizo, has additionally been appointed as the Chief Technical and Operations Officer of the project and is a member of the Hansiatic Hub Management Board, reporting directly to CEO Themlitz.

Marjalizo previously worked at Enagás as an electrical engineer in 2007 and has focused on LNG since 2011.

Over the past 13 years, he has worked as a project engineer and as a project manager at LNG terminals in multiple locations, including at the Spanish terminals at Huelva, Cartagena and Barcelona as well as Altamira in Mexico.

Germany is also building a second onshore LNG terminal at Brunsbüttel in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, north of Hamburg, and where existing floating regasification services are currently operating.

Fortum, the Finnish energy and power company with European Union-wide operations and with plans to give Finland its first floating LNG import terminal, is the majority shareholder in the troubled German utility Uniper but has refused to put any more cash into the Duesseldorf-based company.

Three European liquefied natural gas fuel companies have combined to successfully test an LNG delivery by railcar to a German power plant in Bavaria owned by the utility Uniper.

Liqvis GmbH, the LNG subsidiary of Uniper, said that VTG AG successfully completed initial tests involving the transportation by rail of LNG in its specially developed tank wagons.

In addition to VTG, another company involved in the tests was Chart Ferox, which provided technical support for filling the tanks at the facilities of Brunsbüttel Ports GmbH.

Brunsbüttel is where the first LNG import terminal in Germany is under development.

The LNG tanks were then transported by rail to a Uniper power plant located about 800 kilometres away and involving a north-south journey to the city of Ingolstadt in Bavaria.

“Liqvis is using the project to investigate the option of using rail as a safe, cost-effective and ecologically sound way to transport LNG distribution centres,” said Liqvis.

“The ability to move larger volumes in a single batch by rail reduces transport emissions while taking heavy traffic off the roads,” explained Liqvis.

“Carrying hazardous substances by rail is also generally regarded as very safe,” the company added.

Liqvis noted that project partner VTG has been carrying LNG for many years.

“Now, as the first and to date - only company - in the rail freight sector, it has collaborated with Chart Ferox to develop an innovative tank wagon that can bypass shipping routes, road haulage and the pipeline network to transport LNG across Europe,” explained Liqvis.

New rail wagons

The brand-new wagons have thermally insulated tank to keep the gas at a constant temperature during filling and transportation.

“VTG already has the expertise and the logistical concepts that are needed to move LNG around Europe’s rail networks quickly, reliably and in a way that is kind to the environment,” said Heinz Jürgen Hiller, VTG’s Business Development LNG Europe.

“As a kind of ‘pipeline to go’, our LNG tank wagons can permanently supply liquefied natural gas to whole industries with a voracious appetite for energy. We are really pleased about this partnership, which plugs a gap in rail freight,” stated Hiller.

Brunsbüttel Ports, whose facility stands at the mouth of the Elbe River, was chosen as the venue for loading.

The same site had already handled the first-time filling of VTG’s specially developed tank wagon with LNG back in April 2016.

“In recent years, a strategically favorable location at the point where the Elbe flows into the Kiel Canal has combined with close proximity to the port of Hamburg and direct access to the Baltic and Scandinavian markets to establish the Elbe port in Brunsbüttel as one of the leading LNG terminals on Germany’s North Sea coast,” said Frank Schnabel, Managing Director of Brunsbüttel Ports.

Both truck-to-ship and ship-to-ship LNG bunkering have already taken place at in Brunsbüttel, and plans for the LNG import and distribution terminal are proceeding.

LNG could then be redistributed from Brunsbüttel by rail, by LNG bunkering vessels or via the pipeline network.