LNG

Tree Energy Solutions (TES), the future energy hub developer at the German North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, said regulators had exempted the planned onshore liquefied natural gas terminal within the “Green Energy Hub” from tariff and third-party access regulations for a period of 20 years from the start of operations.

Gasunie, the Dutch utility and co-owner of the Rotterdam and Eemshaven LNG import facilities and a stakeholder in the onshore German regasification facility planned for Brunsbüttel, has named Willemien Terpstra as the next Chief Executive and Chairwoman of the Board.

The German Parliament has voted to allow the development before the winter of a liquefied natural gas import facility in the port of Mukran on the island of Rügen and involving the “FSRU Transgas Power” vessel.

“The Bundestag and Bundesrat both voted on July 7 to allow the construction of an LNG terminal in the port of Mukran on the island of Rügen. Both voted for an amendment to the LNG Acceleration Act,” said a statement.

“The terminal in the port of Mukran should be available for this winter in about six months’ time,” added the Government statement.

Analysts note that the LNG import issue has become a key policy for Chancellor Olaf Stolz’s coalition Government and has caused a partial split with the Greens within the coalition.

Time limitation

The SPD in the Baltic Coast area of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the “FSRU Transgas Power” is to be deployed, are calling for a limitation on the duration of the FLNG project in Mukran.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's state Environment Minister Till Backhaus, a member of the SPD, said that the applications for the planned LNG terminal have still to be thoroughly examined and were far from complete.

According to Backhaus, the responsible authorities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will take a very close look at the applications and may seek amendments.

“From my point of view, the last word has not yet been spoken on the length of the project. We will not accept operating the LNG terminal for the current time span of 20 years,” stated Backhaus.

The Mukran terminal will be part of the operations of Deutsche ReGas GmbH, which has other vessels at the nearby Baltic port of Lubmin and signed an agreement in June 2023 with the Federal Government on deploying the “FSRU Transgas Power”.

Conditions

“The company will be the sub-charterer of the regasification ship to be used together with the ‘Neptune’ in Phase II of the LNG terminal ‘Deutsche Ostsee’ in the port of Mukran,” stated Deutsche ReGas.

It added that as agreed, Deutsche ReGas will assume the rights and obligations of the head charterer in the contract between the Federal Government and Greek shipowner Dynagas.

The Maltese-flagged vessel has 174,000 cubic metres of capacity. It was delivered to Dynagas in 2021 and has a regasification capacity of up to 7.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas per annum.

The Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency) allowed Deutsche ReGas, a private company, to set up LNG import facilities on the basis that a minimum amount of gas was imported.

Deutsche ReGas said that when the Mukran Port operation starts the total injection capacity of the Baltic LNG operations will total 13.5 Bcm per annum, which would be in accordance with the Bundesnetzagentur requirements.

The German gas transmission system operators (TSOs) completed and commissioned a total of 17 projects in 2022, though five other expansion projects were dropped in the course of network modelling for the 2022-2032 Gas Network Development Plan (NDP).

Gasunie, the co-owner of the Dutch Rotterdam and Eemshaven LNG import facilities and a stakeholder in the onshore German regasification facility planned for Brunsbüttel, said annual results were impacted by the energy market turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Germany’s energy regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, said there was sufficient natural gas in storage to see the nation through the winter gas season to the end of March and concentration was now fixed on the 2023-2024 gas season even as regular LNG have not yet started beyond commissioning activities at the ports of Wilhelmshaven and Lubmin.

The bankruptcy procedure for Nord Stream II AG, the Swiss-based operator of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, was extended by six more months until July 2023, according to the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.

The German Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), has exempted Deutsche ReGas GmbH and its LNG import terminal project, Deutsche Ostsee, at the Baltic port of Lubmin from tariff and network access regulations.

The German Association of Gas Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas) said its members had been working flat out to provide initial answers to the new economic conditions for natural gas, including the introduction of LNG imports after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dynagas LNG Partners, the owner of six LNG carriers and mostly involved in Russian cargo liftings, has confirmed in its latest earnings report that three of its carrier charters are now controlled by the German government because they were under contract to Russian natural gas company Gazprom.