LNG

French major TotalEnergies reported a decline in second-quarter earnings led by the company’s liquefied natural gas and the refining and chemicals divisions, while exploration and production performed well.

Saipem, the Italian engineer for LNG, oil and pipeline gas subsea contracts, reported a rise in earnings as well as a surge in new contracts and revenues, giving the company a backlog of €30 billion ($33Bln) and signalling an improving energy sector.

July 17 (LNGJ) - The “LNG Endurance” with 170,500 cubic metres capacity was scheduled to deliver a cargo on July 19 to the Greek import terminal at Revithoussa as European natural gas prices were steady at around $10.17 per million British thermal units. The vessel had also called at the French Channel terminal at Dunkirk and departed on July 10, according to shipping data.

Greek liquefied natural gas project leader Gastrade has said that delays were being experienced for the start-up of Greece’s Alexandroupolis floating LNG import hub to supply Balkan gas grids.

Denmark, one of the largest energy traders in LNG and gas and power in the Nordic market, has brought pipeline natural gas supplies to two of the nation’s isolated areas.

The Danish Energy Agency has issued permits for Energinet and Evida to put the Lolland-Falster pipeline into operation on Danish maritime territory in Storstrømmen and Guldborg Sund.

“The Danish Energy Agency has granted a license to Energinet for the commissioning and operation of the Lolland-Falster gas pipeline on Danish lake territory in Storstrømmen and a licence to Evida for commissioning and operation of the pipeline on Danish territory in Guldborg Sund,” said the Agency.

The Lolland-Falster pipeline in Danish waters is part of a larger gas pipeline project between Everdrup on Zealand and Nakskov on Lolland.

Capacity

The gas pipeline runs as an underwater pipeline at the water crossings at Storstrømmen and Guldborg Sund.

The total length of the pipeline route is around 115 kilometres (72 miles) long and the pipeline can transport up to 290 million cubic metres of natural gas per year.

According to the timetables of both companies commissioning is planned for 30 August 2024.

The Agency said the nation’s consumption of natural gas fell by more than 10 percent in 2023 while the share of bio-natural gas made from waste increased its share of the energy mix.

Denmark is part of the changing Nordic regional energy market where Norway is an LNG exporter and Sweden and Finland are LNG importers, while the Norwegians and Swedes additionally supply power to Denmark.

Additionally the Danes are a conduit for pipeline gas supplies to the Baltic region.

Natural gas consumption in Denmark amounted to around 1.7 billion cubic metres for all of last year, a decrease compared with the previous year.

Natural gas use by the Danes peaked in 2006 at 5.3 Bcm per annum.

The United Kingdom by comparison has much larger natural gas consumption.

UK gas use averaged around 7.4 Bcm per month during the past winter and 72 Bcm for the year, down from almost 79 Bcm in the previous year.

July 2 (LNGJ) - Belgian LNG operator Fluxys completed the subscription window for the Zeebrugge terminal from June 10 to July 1 by offering 24 additional long-term regasification slots for the period of 2027 to 2044. “The outcome of the subscription window was positive with all offered capacity subscribed on the long term,” said Fluxys.

   “In the context of the modified gas flows in Europe, Fluxys LNG has dedicated the past few years to optimising the utilisation of its infrastructure in Zeebrugge and to enhancing the scheduling of vessels by offering additional short-term capacity on top of the existing long-term base capacity of the LNG terminal,” the company added.

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.

June 19 (LNGJ) – A steady number of laden LNG carriers are heading for Europe from Qatar. They include the 210,100 cubic metres capacity Q-Flex carrier “Al Ruwais”, which lifted a cargo on May 19 from the Ras Laffan plant in Qatar and would be arriving off Gibraltar on June 20 to await orders, according to shipping data.

   Another shipment departed from Ras Laffan on May 23 on the “Celsius Gandhinagar”, a vessel with 180,000 cubic metres capacity, and was scheduled to berth at the Belgian terminal in Zeebrugge on June 23.

UK major Shell has confirmed a deal as expected to acquire the liquefied natural gas assets of Pavilion Energy, the natural gas company set up by Singapore’s wealth fund Temasek to give the Asian island state energy security.

The German Association of Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas) said the timetable has been set up for having a shared natural gas pipeline system with hydrogen in Germany's huge pipeline network.

The TSOs in Germany and regulated operators of gas and hydrogen transport networks are obliged by law to set up and operate the network in an equal and non-discriminatory manner.

“In order to fulfil this shared responsibility, the network operators have commissioned FNB Gas as a service provider to fulfil changeover legal tasks,” the FNB said.

The scenario framework for the first integrated gas and hydrogen network development plan is to be handed over to Germany’s Federal Network Agency on June 30, 2024.

The newly established coordination office for the integrated network development planning for gas and hydrogen (KO.NEP) has now officially begun work.

The task of the KO.NEP is to coordinate the future development of the gas and hydrogen system and to submit them to the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) every two years.

Central contact

“It acts as the central contact for authorities and market participants on network development planning issues in the areas of gas and hydrogen and is also responsible for the creation and operation of the legally required databases for the gas and hydrogen network,” the statement added.

FNB Gas Managing Director Barbara Fischer said the body had already gained valuable experience in coordinating gas network development planning.

“We have been supporting the development of the hydrogen core network with great commitment for over a year,” explained Fischer.

“We will bring this knowledge about the processes and content of network planning in both areas into the new coordination office,” she added.

“We have put together a competent team to carry out the coordination office’s tasks,” Fischer stated.

FNB Gas has also previously outlined the future role of LNG import facilities at the coastal locations of the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe and at the Baltic ports of Lubmin and Mukran.

Members

FNB Gas, which comes from the German words Fernleitungsnetzbetreiber, groups a dozen companies overseeing 40,000 kilometres (25,000 miles) of natural gas pipeline flows and other infrastructure.

Members of FNB Gas are the following TSOs: bayernets GmbH, Ferngas Netzgesellschaft GmbH, Fluxys TENP GmbH, Gascade Gastransport GmbH, Gastransport Nord GmbH, Gasunie Deutschland Transport Services GmbH, GRTgaz Deutschland GmbH, Nowega GmbH, ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH, Open Grid Europe GmbH, Terranets BW GmbH and Thyssengas GmbH.