LNG

German LNG Terminal GmbH, the development company of the onshore import facility at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River south of the port of Hamburg and adjacent to the Kiel Canal, has signed up three leading energy companies as long-term foundation customers for regasification capacity.

Two of the UK’s leading shale-gas companies, IGas Energy and Cuadrilla Resources, have welcomed the Government’s commitment to domestic gas production and repeated their pledge to give a share of revenues to local people near the existing likely shale-gas production sites in the North of England.

UK major BP has agreed a $5 billion deal to sell its global petrochemicals business to Ineos, a European chemicals and refinery company and an importer of ethane made from US shale gas.

French energy major Total said it made a large natural gas discovery on its Glendronach prospect offshore the UK, West of Shetland, amid recent reductions in LNG imports to the country’s three main terminals.

Ineos, the European petrochemicals company with shale-gas and refinery assets in the UK, said it signed a long-term supply agreement with SP Chemicals of China for the supply of ethane made from US shale gas.

The decision to ban shale-gas extraction in Scotland means the loss of a potential jobs renaissance and that the country will have to continue importing cargoes of ethane from US shale gas and may eventually need more conventional LNG cargoes than are currently planned for domestic and industrial use.