LNG

WINGAS GmbH, a former subsidiary in Germany of Russia’s Gazprom, has now been rebranded as a part of the SEFE Energy group, which is a business active in LNG import terminals, trading and portfolio management, transportation and storage of energy and is fully owned by the Federal Government of Germany.

The SEFE name comes Securing Energy for Europe (SEFE) GmbH, previously called Gazprom Germania and which came under German control and had its name changed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and subsequent sanctions and the shutting off of the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.

The SEFE company also controls Germany’s largest gas storage facility and has capacity through the utility Uniper at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River.

SEFE also has a stake in Germany’s proposed fifth LNG import terminal at the port of Stade, also located on the Elbe between Hamburg and Cuxhaven.

The German Government acquired all the shares in SEFE in November 2022 and thus became the sole owner of the group of Gazprom companies in Germany.

LNG supply deals

US LNG exporter Venture Global LNG and SEFE have signed a long-term Sales and Purchase Agreement.

Under the agreement, SEFE’s subsidiary, WINGAS GmbH, will purchase 2.25 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Venture Global’s CP2 project to be located next to the existing Calcasieu Pass plant.

SEFE has additionally signed an accord to receive future volumes from Oman.

“This rebranding marks a significant milestone for SEFE, as it brings all of the group’s sales businesses together under one identity across Europe,” said SEFE.

Over the past 30 years, WINGAS has established itself as one of the leading natural gas suppliers in Europe.

Based in the German city of Kassel and with a strong presence across Germany, the company supplies energy-intensive customers across Europe, including municipal utilities, regional gas suppliers, industrial companies and power plants.

In addition to WINGAS’s existing sales business, SEFE Energy also provides gas, electricity, and low carbon energy products to customers in the UK, France, and the Netherlands.

As an integrated sales organisation, SEFE Energy now supplies over 50,000 customers in seven European countries, with a sales volume of around 200 terawatt hours of gas and electricity.

“By leveraging the synergies of our sales teams across Europe, our customers benefit from a more comprehensive offering of energy products and services, helping them achieve their strategic energy goals,” said Matthias Peter, Managing Director of SEFE Energy.

Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), the association representing the interests of European Union gas infrastructure operators in gas transmission, storage and liquefied natural gas, said the flow of LNG to European terminals hit its lowest since December 2021.

The GIE, which is based in Brussels and represents 70 member companies from 26 countries, provided the information from its gas grid data.

LNG supplies from the main terminals in the EU in nations such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany plunged in May 2024.

The decline in regasified LNG flowing into gas grids dropped by a quarter to around 6.75 million tonnes.

Regasified LNG flows were also down by 13 percent compard with April 2024.

Total LNG supplies from terminals to Europe’s gas pipeline system was also lower in the January to May period 2024.

More FSRUs 

The decreased regasified LNG volumes were logged even as the EU had more terminals in operation as floating facilities came on line in Italy and Germany.

The total for the year to date though May fell by 10 percent compared with the first five months of last year to reached around 37.5MT.

Another body in the EU, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG), said that by the end of May the share of LNG was still the largest among sources of gas supply to Europe in 2024, standing at 32 percent.

Thus compared the 28 percent of gas provided from the Norwegian Continental Shelf and another 18 percent that came from gas storage facilities.

Other sources of gas received in Europe included 10 percent recived by pipleines from Algeria.

The Algerian volumes were delivered directly to Spain or via Tunisia to Italy by way of Sicily.

The share of gas supplies from Russia and volumes via Ukraine came to 9.5 percent.

Another 2.5 percent of European gas volumes originated from the UK North Sea.

The US remained the largest supplier of LNG to import terminals in EU and the UK followed by Qatar.

The German Association of Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas) said that had been a “significant easing of the supply situation” and Germany was looking forward to natural gas energy security in the future.

Deutsche Regas GmbH, the operator of the floating liquefied natural gas import terminal at the Baltic Sea port of Lubmin, said operating permits had been received at the company’s second German Baltic regasification terminal, located at the port of Mukran on Germany’s largest island of Rügen to allow operations to formally begin.

RWE AG, the German utility with LNG import interests at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe while also being involved in coal-fired generation and energy trading, reported improved earnings.

The German Association of Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas) said that members have decided that the financing model for the hydrogen core network to run alongside natural gas must be suitable for investment by mainstream capital markets.

FNB Gas wants the core network to have a balanced risk-reward ratio and “state protection at all times and for all core network operators” to increase legal certainty.

FNB Gas Managing Director Barbara Fischer emphasized the need for the financing model to be suitable for the capital markets.

Her statement came as the “expert hearing” took placein the Committee for Climate Protection and Energy in the German Bundestag in Berlin on the draft law to amend the Energy Industry Act with regulations for the financing of the core network.

“The transmission system operators (TSOs) agree with the federal government that the hydrogen infrastructure in Germany should be financed privately,” explained Fischer.

Financing model

“To this end, the draft law presents a fundamentally functional financing model, with which the necessary private capital can only be mobilized if investors consider it to be suitable for the capital market and the investment conditions are at least no worse than for investments in other infrastructure areas such as electricity,” she added.

“There is currently a higher interest rate, no run-up risk and no deductible risk,” stated Fischer.

“In order not to jeopardize the success of core network planning to date, from an investor perspective, a few but crucial changes to the draft law are necessary. The main aim is to improve risk assessment for investors,” Fischer declared.

FNB Gas also noted that the network operators' “conditioned tender obligation” must be supplemented by an unconditional tender right of the network operators in the event of failure of the market ramp-up. 

“A contract under public law would increase legal certainty,” said FNB Gas.

Capacity reservations

FNB Gas said earlier in February that members were seeking more capacity reservations and capacity expansion for pipelines as well as more sector benefits from imported and regasified LNG and from power plants in accordance with the new gas industry framework for Germany.

According to the German federal government's draft law, the TSOs and the regulated operators of hydrogen transport networks must create the framework for the first integrated network for gas and hydrogen by June 30, 2024.

The FNB plan focuses on the conversion of 60 percent of existing gas pipelines to carry hydrogen, which is additionally burdened by being more explosive than natural gas.

FNB 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 Port of Lubmin.

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.

The TSOs had earlier presented their draft gas network development plan through 2032 and which reflected the far-reaching changes in Germany's energy supply now that Russian pipeline gas deliveries have ended.

Gas demand issues

FNB Gas, which is based in Berlin and was founded in 2012, believes that German natural gas consumption was expected to fall by at least 20 percent by 2032.

Germany first presented its hydrogen strategy in mid-2020 under the Government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The strategy was continued by the Government coalition after Merkel of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the Free Democrats.

The three parties agreed to present an ambitious update to the strategy to make the country a leading market for hydrogen technologies by 2030.

Members of FNB Gas are the following companies: 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.

The German Association of Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas) said that members were seeking more capacity reservations and capacity expansion for pipelines as well as more sector benefits from imported and regasified LNG and from power plants in accordance with the new gas industry framework for Germany.

Jan 8 (LNGJ) - Klaipėdos Nafta, the operator of the LNG import terminal in the Baltic state of Lithuania, will now become the commercial manager of four German LNG terminals. “KN Energies AB has kicked off the year 2024 by securing the public tenders for the commercial management of four German terminals,” said KN Energies.

   The Lithuanians said that on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, they would operate the existing floating facility at the German North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven as a well as a planned second facility. They would also operate the Brunsbüttel terminal on the Elbe and would additionally be responsible for the planned LNG terminal in the Port of Stade on the Lower Elbe.

Oct 30 (LNGJ) - Germany launched a two-pronged diplomatic blitzkrieg of West and East Africa with the Chancellor and the President simultaneously visiting each side of the continent and seeking the permanent replacement of Russian natural gas with LNG imports from Africa and with the Germans expressing a willingness to invest in energy projects. Visiting Nigeria German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country was willing to invest in natural gas in Nigeria, the largest LNG, gas and oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Before meeting Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu the Chancellor had spoken of his nation requiring “considerable” amounts of natural gas.

   While Chancellor Scholz was in Nigeria and later travelling on to the West African nation of Ghana, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was visiting the East African country of Tanzania, an emerging LNG nation with a project being developed by energy majors. Chancellor Scholz also last year visited Senegal, where floating LNG projects are being development and spoke at the time of German investment in West Africa oil and gas.

European natural gas markets are exploring more imaginative LNG and pipeline natural gas deals with land-locked Austria securing a five-year agreement for the supply of gas volumes into the newest LNG importing nation Germany’s virtual gas trading hub.