LNG

July 8 (LNGJ) - Equinor, the Norwegian oil, gas and LNG producer and the main supplier of pipeline gas to Europe, said ahead of second-quarter earnings on July 24 that the company’s internal natural gas price for the three months rose to $8.47 per million British thermal units, up from $7.76 per MMBtu in the first quarter of 2024.

   Equinor’s internal transfer price for natural gas is a volume weighted average price calculated at the end of every quarter after deducting costs relating to bringing the gas from the processing plants to market and a marketing fee element. The price components include values of the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) amounting to 22.5 percent of the total, the UK National Balancing Point (NBP) with 30 percent input, Germany’s Trading Hub Europe (THE) price at 22.5 percent and the French Point d’Echange de Gaz (PEG) 25 percent.

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.

German Chancellor and leader of European Union socialists Olaf Scholz talked down fossil fuels in a major speech and stated  that renewable energy like wind and solar are the future and could be the saviours of German industry and the beleaguered economy.

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.

Germany's hydrogen obsession, which has made liquefied natural gas suppliers uneasy and prevented the Germans securing long-term LNG supply contracts, has been brought into focus by a German report saying that hydrogen demand would fall well short of the baseline the country is assuming in its plans to extend its gas network to carry the fuel.                  

Deutsche ReGas GmbH, the German owner of the floating LNG terminal at the Baltic Sea port of Lubmin and with another floating terminal set to start at the nearby port of Mukran, said it would hold an open season in November for short-term capacities.

Gasunie, the Dutch utility and owner of stakes in the Dutch Rotterdam and Eemshaven LNG import terminals and the onshore German regasification project  planned for Brunsbüttel, posted increases in first-half net profits and revenues as natural gas markets evolved after the ending of Russian pipeline flows.

Deutsche ReGas GmbH, the German owner of the floating LNG terminal at the Baltic port of Lubmin, and German Transmission System Operator, Gascade GmbH, are organising a “town hall” event to try and clear the way for the fifth out of six proposed floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) to be deployed off Mukran Port on Rügen, Germany’s largest island in the Baltic Sea.

The Ministry of Economics is determined that at least one of the six government-chartered FSRUs be deployed at Rügen, near Lubmin, before winter 2023 to handle an additional five billion cubic metres per annum of regasified LNG .

The plans call for import facilities to be established off the southeast cost of Rügen several kilometres from the resorts of Sassnitz and Ostseebad-Blinz.

This Rügen FSRU plan has led to opposition and some demonstrations from locals backed by Green party activitists who believe that the replacement energy sources for halted Russian pipeline gas would harm the tourist industry on the island in what was a part of the former East Germany.

Deutsche Regas and Gascade have called the public meeting for the town of Ostseebad-Binz on June 20 as imports are due to start before the end of the year.

Progress

As part of efforts to replace lost Russian pipeline gas supplies, the German government has been installing LNG terminals along its coast with the first to start operations in January 2023 being the Deutsche Regas terminal at Lubmin.

The facilities at Lubmin are about 40 nautical miles from Sassnitz and Mukran port that are part of the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

As 2023 has progressed, Berlin has inaugurated several other FSRUs at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River.

The floating LNG terminals import gas mainly from the US and Qatar and the volumes are delivered into the German energy grid and beyond.

There are also plans for some of the FSRUs to be replaced by permanent onshore regasification facilities as in Brunsbüttel.

Deutsche Regas has advertised the town hall-style gathering on its Web site proclaiming “citizen information event about the LNG terminal in Mukran”.

The event has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 20, at 5 pm local time at the Kurhaus-Saal venue near Schillerstraße in Ostseebad-Binz.

“All are welcome and a project presentation will start at 5:45 pm followed by a questions and answers session with the end of the event scheduled for 7:00pm,” said Deutsche Regas and Gascade in their invitation.  

Open Season June 29

Deutsche Regas is trying to clear the way for the June 29 Open Season launch for Phase II capacity of the LNG terminal expansion to Mukran port.

“In Phase II, it is planned to operate the floating LNG terminal consisting of two FSRUs in the port of Mukran from December 2023 and to connect it to the gas pipeline network via a new connecting line between Mukran and Lubmin,” explained Deutsche Regas in a statement.

“In Phase II, the planned annual throughput capacity for natural gas is up to 13.5 billion cubic metres,” it added.

Gascade was involved in helping with the development of the Deutsche Regas FRSU terminal at Lubmin.

In just a few weeks, Gascade completed the pipeline link to the gas landfall at Greifswald with connections to the NEL (North European Natural Gas Pipeline), OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungsleitung) and EUGAL (European Gas Pipeline Link) connections to the gas grids of the rest of Germany and the European Union.

Uniper, the German utility almost brought down by the stoppage of pipeline natural gas supplies from Russia’s Gazprom and which is now importing LNG at Germany’s North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, said it was considering the legal implications of the seizure of its assets in Russia.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has signed loan agreements underwriting project financing amounting to over US$2.3 billion for a power interconnector between  UK and German LNG import locations to also help guarantee against any future natural gas and LNG shortages.