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.

Enagás, the Spanish natural gas operator of six large LNG terminals and with gas assets in other European countries and overseas, has reported a surge in customers for its LNG bunkering services along the Spanish coastline and even more fuel will be supplied in 2024 as bunkering vessels arrive on station.

Enagás, the Spanish natural gas operator of six large LNG terminals and with gas assets in other European countries and overseas, reported an increase in first-quarter 2024 earnings even as gas demand in Spain declined because of warmer weather.

Enagás, the Spanish gas grid and terminals operator, increased profits in the first six months of 2023 helped by one-time items as LNG activities increased to help the European Union’s natural gas shortfall and the utility also boosted future capacity on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline from Azerbaijan.

The company’s net profits jumped to €172.8M including a net gain of €42.2M from the sale of a stake in the Morelos Pipeline in Mexico and an €133.8M adjustment relating to the Tallgrass Energy operations in the US.

“The Spanish Gas System operated 100 percent availability, Spain increased its total gas exports by 55 percent in the first half of the year and ship reloading has increased by 67 percent, contributing to Europe's security of supply,” Enagás stated.

Italy was a main destination for LNG re-exports to Europe while pipeline gas connections increased by 33 percent to 28.6 terawatt hours. The company already trans-ships LNG to the EU from terminals like Barcelona.

“Spain's underground natural gas storage facilities are at 98 percent capacity, an all-time high for the month of July,” it added.

Revenues up

The Madrid-based company reported first-half revenues of €450.5M, a drop of 5.8 percent from €472.2M registered in the first six months of 2022.

Enagás said it was still on track to meet the full-year earnings target of between €310M and €320M.

Enagás added that in July it closed the agreement announced in January to acquire an additional 4 percent stake from European trader AXPO in the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) for €168M, taking its stake in the pipeline bringing Azerbaijan gas to Europe up to 20 percent.

During the first half, Enagás contracted additional transport capacity of 1.2 billion cubic metres from TAP, in addition to the current 10 Bcm starting in 2026.

During an eventful first half, Enagás noted the start-up of the El Musel LNG trans-shipment terminal in the Port of Gijón in northwest Spain and the assignment of its logistics services to the European utility Endesa.

“The terminal has already received two LNG shipments and will start commercial operation on July 31 after a capacity allocation process that has aroused great interest,” the company added.

Another highlight was the agreement with regional gas company Reganosa through which Enagás acquired its 130-kilometres of strategic gas pipelines in northern Spain and Reganosa agreed to purchase a 25 percent stake in the El Musel regasification terminal.

“The closing of the deal was expected in the second half of this year,” said the company.

In LNG activities outside of Spain, Enagás became an industrial partner with a 10 percent stake in the Hanseatic Energy Hub consortium planning an onshore LNG import terminal at the German North Sea port of Stade.

Enagás, the Spanish gas grid and terminals operator, said the El Musel liquefied natural gas re-loading facility in Northwest Spain designated to supply the European Union has received its first cargo that was loaded on the US Gulf Coast.

Enagás has re-activated the existing El Musel terminal on the Bay of Biscay to meet growing LNG needs in the EU after the closure of Russian pipeline gas supplies and a commissioning cargo was delivered by the 174,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Cool Racer”.

Shipping data showed that the cargo had been lifted from the Calcasieu Pass export plant in Louisiana on June 16. 

The Spanish terminal in the Port of Gijón will contribute up to 8 billion cubic metres of additional LNG to Europe’s supply when commercial operations start.

“The unloading of this first LNG vessel is a necessary prior step, from a technical point of view, before the final start-up as a logistics plant,” said Enagás.

Enagás has already conducted the second phase of a capacity allocation process, or open season, for El Musel after interest was expressed by 16 trading companies.

The binding phase just closed on June 30 after receiving binding offers from marketers for the capacity offered by the terminal.

Cool-down process

“As part of the usual technical process in this type of start-up operation, the initial cold start-up with liquid nitrogen of the infrastructure has already been carried out, prior to the arrival of the ship,” said Enagás.

“The LNG from the ship gradually replaces the inert gas (nitrogen) inside the tanks. With this, a progressive cooling of the tanks occurs until reaching cryogenic temperatures in which LNG can be stored at minus-160ºC,” Enagás explained.

The aim of the logistical use of the El Musel facility is to contribute energy supply to the EU because of the end of dependence on Russian pipeline natural gas after the events such as sanctions and retaliatory pipeline shutdowns that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

El Musel will specialise in the unloading of LNG carriers from various producing countries and the rapid re-loading of ships for different European destinations.

The terminal berthing can accommodate the largest vessels and it has two storage tanks each with capacity of 150,000 cubic metres.

The re-opening of El Musel is part of the Spanish Government’s “More Energy Security Plan” and will add to Spain’s role as an energy hub for Europe as the nation also receives pipeline gas imports from Algeria.

Enagás operates six other LNG regasification terminals on mainland Spain.

It owns five of those terminals at Barcelona in the northeast, at Cartagena in the southeast, at Sagunto in the east of Spain, at Huelva in the southwest as well as the El Musel facility.

Enagás additionally holds a 50 percent stake at another northwest facility serving the northwest port of Bilbao and owns two small regasification terminals in the Canary Islands.

Enagás, the Spanish natural gas grid and LNG terminals operator, said first-quarter net profits excluding one-time items dropped by 21 percent and revenues also fell even as LNG and pipeline gas delivers rose and 43 percent of the LNG stored in Europe during the quarter was in the tanks of the six Spanish regasification terminals.

March 31 (LNGJ) - Enagás, the Spanish LNG importer and gas grid operator, said in a market overview that underground storage reached a 93 percent fill at the beginning of winter and remained at historical levels of around 78 percent while regasification terminals, which in 2022 received LNG from 19 different origins, had an average fill level of around 70 percent.

   “Spain exported 90 percent more natural gas to Europe than in in the previous year. Exports through the interconnections with France beat the annual historical record and the refuelling of LNG vessels at Spanish terminals increased by 45 percent, “ said Enagás. “The total of domestic natural gas demand and exports to Europe increased by 4.4 percent in 2022,” the company added.

Enagás, the Spanish gas grid and LNG terminals operator, has held an event for marketers and the regulatory authorities at its headquarters in Madrid where it revealed plans to launch an open season on March 6 for logistics services at the re-activated El Musel import terminal in Northwest Spain on the Bay of Biscay.

Enagás, the Spanish gas grid and LNG terminals operator, has acquired the Reganosa gas pipeline network in Northern Spain while Reganosa is becoming a 25 percent shareholder in the El Musel regasification and import terminal on the Bay of Biscay previously 100-percent owned by Enagás.

Enagás, Spain’s natural gas grid and LNG network operator, reported slight declines in 2022 net profits and revenues after a year of high volatility in the energy markets with the Spanish Gas System operating without halt and Enagás infrastructure helping maintain the security of supply of the European Union.