LNG

Trading Hub Europe GmbH, Germany’s market area manager for the nation’s natural gas system and now including deliveries to four LNG import destinations, has arranged a series of meetings in German and English to engage in discussions with market participants and present forthcoming changes in the German gas market.

Italian energy company Eni and Swiss gas supply company Open Energy Platform AG signed an agreement to guarantee the flow of natural gas to Switzerland and Italy in the event of interruptions or significant gas flow reductions from Germany.

E.ON, Europe's biggest operator of energy networks and with plans to enter the LNG import business in September with a floating storage and regasification unit delivered to the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, reported an increase in annual net income while also writing off its Nord Stream gas pipeline stake.

German Chancellor Helmut Scholz has led an inauguration ceremony for the nation’s first LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the “Höegh Esperanza”, at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven.

Germany has now nationalized a former subsidiary of Russian natural gas company Gazprom that had already been taken control of by the German authorities in April as part of sanctions and energy security measures after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Trading Hub Europe (THE) GmbH of Germany has launched an invitation to bid for the provision of natural gas balancing services in the period from January 2023 through March 2023 to meet its long-term balancing requirements in the multi-quality German market area.

Russian natural gas pipeline supplier Gazprom said it was ready in technical terms to build new gas pipelines to Turkey via the Black Sea and building on existing TurkStream and BlueStream links rather than restoring the damaged Nord Stream pipelines linked to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

German natural gas supplier Verbundnetz Gas AG (VNG), based in the eastern city of Leipzig, has become the second large Russian gas buyer to be approved for a Berlin Government bail-out to stay afloat after LNG buyer Uniper received government funds in return for a stake.

Asian LNG spot prices narrowed the differential with European Union wholesale gas markets as futures trading signalled high prices in the third quarter and beyond as the gas complex remained underpinned by high Brent crude values even as an oil demand turnaround is awaited.

Nord Stream II AG, the owner of the new Russian pipeline to bring supplies to Germany, said it registered a subsidiary for the German part of the pipeline to meet German regulatory requirements, though the certification for the project still remained suspended by the Bundesnetzagentur regulator based in the city of Bonn.