LNG

New Fortress Energy, the US integrated LNG and power company that owns, operates or provides natural gas to 30 facilities in five countries has almost tripled net profits in the past year.

The German Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has rejected the first of two appeals brought by farmers in Northern Germany over the temporary confiscation of their land so that natural gas pipelines could be constructed and linked to an existing floating LNG import terminal at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River and a planned onshore terminal nearby.

VINCI, the French engineering and construction company, said one of its subsidiaries signed a contract to design and build Germany's first onshore liquefied natural gas import terminal at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River south of Hamburg.

The company, based in the Paris suburbs, said the engineering, procurement and construction contract included building the facilities with two storage tanks.

VINCI said the work involved a strategic project for Germany's energy independence and would be carried out by its subsidiary Cobra IS in a consortium with the Spanish LNG terminal specialist Sener Energy Engineering.

“It will have a production capacity of 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year and will have two 165,000 cubic metres storage tanks,” explained VINCI.

“The terminal will be equipped with auxiliary operating systems, infrastructure and other buildings,” it added.

VINCI said the customer was German LNG Terminal GmbH and the terminal when completed would enable Germany to import LNG to be unloaded and injected into the grid system or transported by lorries for off-grid usage or for transportation fuel.

Target date

“The installation is to be delivered in 2026, with the works lasting 42 months,” said VINCI.

The statement added that Cobra IS and Sener had much experience in projects of this kind.

Their combined previous LNG contracts in Europe alone have included terminals at Sagunto in Eastern Spain and Bahía de Bizkaia in the Spanish northwest, as well as the Gate terminal in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dunkirk LNG in France and the Zeebrugge facility in Belgium.

The German LNG Terminal company was accorded full planning permission in May 2022 by the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck.

Analysts said that due to its location and the industrial connections, the Brunsbüttel site has good prerequisites for developing into an import hub for the northern German economy in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The Brunsbüttel terminal has additionally signed a preliminary accord with Shell to acquire cargo volumes.

The German Government, though the state investment body Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), replaced Dutch storage company Royal Vopak in the shareholder line-up, though the dominant company is still the Dutch utility Gasunie.

The German utility RWE, based in Essen, has also signed an accord to join the Brunsbüttel project.

The development company has said it believed that LNG would become even “greener” in the future and would be a great transition fuel for Germany. 

Royal Vopak, the Netherlands-based global storage company with four stakes in liquefied natural gas terminals and a new LNG import project for Hong Kong, said the German Federal Government would be replacing Vopak as a shareholder in the proposed German LNG terminal at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River.

Fluxys, the Belgian natural gas grid company and owner of the Zeebrugge LNG import terminal, has agreed to become a partner and operator for the Hanseatic Energy Hub, the latest German LNG import terminal project to be developed west of the port of Hamburg.

German oil and gas major Wintershall Dea has expressed confidence various projects bringing pipeline natural gas supplies from Russia and Norway in the face of no competition as yet in the largest European Union economy from LNG shipments.

German company TGE Gas Engineering GmbH has signed a contract with Flogas Britain Ltd, a company with several LNG firsts to its name, for the conversion of a former National Grid LNG peak-shaving facility at Avonmouth in southeast England into a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal.

June 25 (LNGJ) - German LNG Terminal, the company developing an onshore facility at Brunsbuettel on the Elbe River south of Hamburg, has selected a Spanish-German joint venture comprising Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios SA and Sener Ingeniería y Sistemas SA of Spain and Bonn-based TGE Gas Engineering GmbH for the final phase of the engineering, procurement and construction contract award.

   “This final phase will consist of a comprehensive value-improvement exercise and detailed price actualization to make the project more cost efficient to conclude a binding EPC contract by the end of 2020,” said German LNG Terminal. “It is expected that the detailed design and engineering work, necessary to develop purchase orders of long-lead products, can then be started soon after the finalization of the contract,” it added. German LNG Terminal is a joint venture involving Dutch gas network company Gasunie BV, global Dutch storage company Royal Vopak and Germany’s Oiltanking GmbH, a subsidiary of Marquard & Bahls AG of Hamburg.

German LNG Terminal, the Dutch-led joint venture developing a planned liquefied natural gas import terminal at Brunsbuettel on the Elbe River near Hamburg, expects to make an investment decision soon after binding import contracts have been finalised at the end of 2020.

RWE, Germany’s largest utility and power producer and whose headquarters are in the city of Essen, confirmed that it had secured potentially 5 billion cubic metres of import capacity at Brunsbuettel as it also seeks a wider role for the facility.

“Currently the parties are in the final phase of negotiating fully binding legal contracts for LNG imports,” said RWE and German LNG Terminal in a joint statement.

“RWE and German LNG expect this process to be finalised by the end of 2020, putting German LNG in a position to reach a positive investment decision shortly thereafter,” it added.

German LNG Terminal is a venture comprising Dutch gas network operator Gasunie, German tank storage provider Oiltanking GmbH, and Dutch storage company Royal Vopak.

Gasunie and Vopak were the development companies behind the Dutch Gate LNG terminal at the port of Rotterdam.

RWE added that LNG import terminals like Brunsbuettel could also be combined with entry points for (liquid) hydrogen produced in other regions of the world where wind and solar energy are available at larger scale and lower cost than in Germany.

“Existing gas pipelines connected to the LNG terminal are perfectly fit to distribute hydrogen locally,” said RWE.

Javier Moret, Global Head of LNG at RWE Supply & Trading GmbH, said his company was an advocate of LNG.

“It can provide Germany with clean and affordable energy today and at the same time contribute to reducing emissions in the maritime and road transport sector as an alternative fuel,” added Moret.

“At the same time we want to make sure we are prepared for the next technological advancement. In the future hydrogen will play a key role as a climate-neutral fuel in the energy mix,” he explained.

“We are prepared for this next step with the new agreement. Therefore we are happy to support German LNG Terminal’s initiative in this field,” stated Moret.

Currently the parties are in the final phase of negotiating fully binding legal contracts for LNG imports.

RWE and German LNG expect this process to be finalised by the end of 2020, putting German LNG in a position to reach a positive investment decision shortly thereafter.

Another German utility, Uniper, is backing a second German import project at the deepwater North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven using a floating storage and regasification unit.
Uniper has said it expected that a competitive tender process would be conducted in the months ahead to seek binding accords with potential customers

Pieridae Energy, the developer of the German-backed Goldboro LNG project in the Canadian Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, has had its purchase of Royal Dutch Shell’s midstream and upstream assets in the southern foothills of Alberta blocked by the provincial regulator.