LNG

With five liquefied natural gas import terminals in operation, France has now assumed the role of a leading regasified LNG supplier to the European Union, especially Germany and other neighbours, as gas from Russia’s Gazprom has been easily replaced with increasing gas flows from West to East in the EU.

Elengy, the operator of three terminals in Western and Southern France at Montoir-de-Bretagne, Fos Tonkin and Fos Cavaou has increased the LNG trucking capabilities at the Fos Cavaou facility located west of the Mediterranean port of Marseille.

The Managing Director of Elengy, Nelly Nicoli, inaugurated the two new tank-truck loading bays at the Fos Cavaou terminal.

The LNG fuel expansion event was also attended by René Raimondi, Mayor of the town of Fos, Hervé Martel, President of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseilles, and Régis Passerieux, Sub-Prefect of the district of Istres.

The new loading bays at Fos Cavaou now give the West Med terminal four bays with the capacity to offer 22,000 slots a year.

“LNG constitutes an immediate and effective response to the challenges of the energy transition in the road transport sector by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions,” stated Nicoli.

Commissioning

“With this commissioning, Elengy will continue with the development of its infrastructure to provide reliable and sustainable access to LNG for road transport,” added Nicoli.

“The two new bays of Fos Cavaou represented an investment of €10 million ($10.8M),” she stated.

Elengy has been expanding LNG truck-loading bays since 2013 at the Montoir-de-Bretagne and the Fos Tokin and Fos Cavaou terminals.

Over the past 10 years around 70,000 trucks have been loaded with LNG for the gradually expanding fuel market in the European Union.

Ship movements

Elengy’s three regulated terminals offer market flexibility for the unloading or loading of any type of LNG carriers as well as trans-shipment services.

The company’s LNG carrier traffic amounts to around 330 ships per annum at the three facilities.

Elengy added that during 2023 LNG had also been loaded into ISO containers at the Fos terminals for transportation by rail.

The company said it was also developing its services by investing in the development of bio-LNG made from waste to reduce the environmental footprint of the fuel.

Oct 26 (LNGJ) – TotalEnergies said the commissioning was completed on the 145,130 cubic metres capacity vessel “Cape Ann”. The LNG floating storage and regasification unit is deployed as an import facility in the Channel port of Le Havre as the nation's fifth terminal. “The terminal injected its first megawatt-hours of gas into the grid operated by utility GRTgaz using LNG from Norway,” said TotalEnergies. The French major later reported earnings and a 35 percent fall in third-quarter adjusted net income to $6.45 billion from $9.86Bln in the same three months a year ago.

   In the integrated LNG division, the company reiterated offtake contracts in the quarter in Qatar for 3.5 million tonnes per annum for 27 years, the launch of the Rio Grande LNG project in Texas and its securing of a stake in NextDecade and the Texas project with 5.4 MTPA of offtake for 20 years. The average third-quarter LNG price for TotalEnergies was $9.56 per million British thermal units versus $21.51 per MMBtu in the same quarter of 2022.

French utility and LNG market participant Engie reported a more than 60 percent surge in revenues, though real net income plunged and the company said it was going ahead with an arbitration procedure against Russia’s Gazprom.

GRTgaz, the French gas grid company with three liquefied natural gas import terminals under its control, began transporting pipeline gas to Germany after reversing the normal flow on the only link between the two nations and since then European Union day-ahead spot gas prices have dropped, though other influences have been at play.

GRTgaz, the French natural gas transmission company with three liquefied natural gas import terminals under its control, said LNG would help it through the winter season and was working on reversing flows to Germany following the cut-off of pipeline supplies from Russia to the European Union.

GRTgaz, the French natural gas transmission company with three liquefied natural gas import terminals under its control through subsidiary Elengy, said it had seen a shortfall in Russian supplies and this was being offset with LNG cargoes and additional pipeline flows from Norway.

“We are not currently experiencing any difficulties in supplying or transporting gas over the French network,” said GRTGaz.

“Onshore gas inputs from northeast France, the location at which Russian pipeline gas arrives in the country, are continuing, but at levels below those seen in previous years,” explained the company, headquartered at Bois-Colombes in the northwest suburbs of Paris.

“This decrease is being offset by sustained supplies of LNG, as well as pipeline gas supplies from Norway,” stated GRTGaz.

The company noted that the European Union natural gas market was potentially fast-changing and GRTGaz was making sure that it had solutions for all eventualities.

“As France's main gas transport operator, GRTgaz is part of the system in place to ensure a secure supply,” explained the company.

“As such, it works closely alongside the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, supervising the situation,” it added.

Emergency options

GRTGaz was also working with other French and European gas infrastructure companies, under the supervision of the public authorities, on developing solutions should Russian gas supplies cease.

“We aim to be able to maintain our storage levels over the forthcoming months and provide consumers with gas until next winter,” it stated.

“We are also working with those of our clients who might find themselves affected, ensuring that the measures in place in the event of load-shedding for consumers on the transport and distribution networks being required are properly shared. These measures would only be applicable as a last resort,” declared GRTGaz.

GRTgaz said in its annual review that terminal subsidiary Elengy received 176 LNG cargoes in 2021 at the three terminals in Western and Southern France at Montoir-de-Bretagne, Fos Tonkin and Fos Cavaou. France's fourth import terminal is at the Channel port of Dunkirk.

The terminals also handled six cargo re-loadings, 10 trans-shipments and 14,715 tanker truck LNG loadings during the year.

GRTgaz ensures the pipeline transportation of gas throughout France, though in the southwest the grid is run by regional network company Teréga.

GRTgaz had been receiving fewer transits last year, whether to Spain, which benefited from very sustained supplies from Algeria or to Switzerland (and Italy), which benefited from the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea to southern Italy.

Large network

GRTgaz is the EU’s second-largest European natural gas transporter after Italy with 32,500 kilometres of pipelines and 640 terawatt hours of gas transported in 2021.

The Italian natural gas pipeline network is almost 50,000km in length.

The other GRTgaz subsidiaries include GRTgaz Deutschland, operator of the German MEGAL transmission network.

The MEGAL pipeline system is 1,160km in length and runs from the German-French border at Medelsheim via the Czech Republic's border point with Germany at Waidhaus to the bi-directional cross-border point at the German-Austrian border in Oberkappel.

The MEGAL pipeline system consists of two pipelines: the MEGAL Nord (North) pipeline and the MEGAL Süd (South) pipeline.

Engie, the France-based European utility company, reported an annual profit of €3.7 billion ($4.2Bln) compared with a loss of €1.5Bln in 2020 as the natural gas and power network businesses improved and nuclear turned a profit while renewables were disappointing given the amount of investment and promotion.

GRTgaz, the French natural gas transmission company, said LNG terminal subsidiary Elengy received 176 cargoes in 2021 at the three terminals in Western and Southern France as it gave an overview of last year’s gas transportation and storage activities.

France’s Commission de Régulation de l'Energie (CRE) has given the go-ahead for a further increase in the cost of imported natural gas, leading to an immediate jump in regulated domestic sales tariffs as costs rise for utilities all over Europe.