LNG

Italian floating LNG terminal company, OLT Offshore LNG Toscana controlled by Italian natural gas grid and LNG terminals operator Societa Nazionale Metanodotti (SNAM), said the “FSRU Toscana” vessel would be undergoing long-term maintenance at a shipyard and would be offline for six months.

Italy has approved two projects for floating LNG import terminals off the coast of Ravenna in the eastern Adriatic Sea and at the West Coast port of Piombino, opposite the island of Elba.

Italy has said that as part of its energy security strategy two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) will be added to the three existing LNG import facilities.

The two new LNG terminals, both to be operated by Italy's state-controlled gas grid operator SNAM, will have a capacity of 5 billion cubic metres, covering around 15 percent of national annual gas consumption.

The FSRUs will be Italy’s fourth and fifth LNG import terminals after the onshore facility at Panigaglia near Genoa, another FSRU owned by OLT Offshore Toscana off the port of Livorno and the Adriatic LNG facility, an offshore gravity-based structure on the east coast.

The FSRU destined for Ravenna, the 170,000 cubic metres capacity “BW Singapore”, was purchased by SNAM and is currently bound by a charter agreement with a third party after which it will be deployed by the end of 2024.

SNAM Chief Executive Stefano Venier said that preparatory works would last two years with the Ravenna terminal expected to start operations in the fourth quarter of 2024.

“We have chosen Ravenna and Piombino both for the technical characteristics they offer us, but also because they're close to consumers,” stated Venier.

Italy is planning on the Piombino FSRU being operational by the end of March 2023.

The Piombino terminal will be in the form of the deployment of the 154,950 cubic metres capacity FSRU vessel “Golar Tundra”.

Ideal location

The port of Piombina was chosen because there was no other place in that region of Italy where there was a substantially unused jetty of 300 metres in length.

In addition the FSRU will be only 8.8 kilometres (5.5 miles) from the main SNAM gas network connections.

SNAM also officially ended its gas injection campaign at the end of October with the level of gas stocks managed by subsidiary Stogit reaching 95.2 percent for a total of 11.2 Bcm of natural gas in addition to the 4.5 Bcm held as strategic reserves.

The network operator added that the national energy system would also have access to an additional 1.1 Bcm held in the storage facilities of other operators.

“The supply of gas from storage will take place in the coming months on the basis of the guidelines soon to be issued by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security using transparent auction mechanisms,” added SNAM.

European classification society, DNV of Norway, said at Gastech in Milan that it had advised Italian natural gas grid and LNG terminal operator SNAM on its acquisition of two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) from Golar LNG and BW Gas.

Adriatic LNG, the company operating the biggest LNG regasification terminal in Italy offshore the northeast coast, has launched the accreditation phase for its Open Season 2022 for European and international operators.

Adriatic LNG, the operator of the largest LNG regasification terminal in Italy located offshore the eastern Veneto coastline, has formally launched its open season to allocate capacity for up to 25 years.

Adriatic LNG said the open season would culminate in a series of non-binding and binding auctions between interested operators scheduled from November 26th to the end of December 2021.

The terminal has been on line since autumn 2009 and is a private operator which enables cargo imports amounting to about 10 percent of the national gas consumption of Italy.

It has so far handled about 800 cargoes at its gravity-based structure facilities. The terminal includes two LNG storage tanks, each with a capacity of 125,000 cubic metres.

“As a result of suggestions brought to our attention by market operators, especially during the public consultation, Adriatic LNG offers 16 products, consisting in aggregated LNG discharge slots that can be combined together,” explained the company.

Shareholders

Adriatic LNG is co-controlled by ExxonMobil Italiana Gas and Qatar Terminal Ltd, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, while Italian gas network operator SNAM has a 7.3 percent shareholding.

“Products available for the first auction session, closing on December 2, 2021, are published on the Open Season Catalogue of Products for Session 1,” said the company.

“Volumes offered vary between 1 billion cubic metres per year and to 1.6 Bcm per year of regasified natural gas, with duration varying between 10 and 24 years 9 months,” added Adriatic.

Total regasification capacity offered through the open season accounts for 153 Bcm.

The company stated that in order to increase the offer flexibility, Adriatic will give the opportunity to operators to submit, for certain types of products and within specific limits, personalized bids by requesting the reduction of duration and/or annual volumes.

“Adriatic may organize an additional second session by December 16, 2021 in case the capacity would not be entirely allocated during the first one. In this second session, available capacity would not be offered as products but as single discharge slots,” stated the company.

The eight supplying countries so far to the Adriatic facility have been Qatar, Angola, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Nigeria and the US. 

Italian natural gas network operator Snam, one of Europe’s leading energy infrastructure companies, said the volumes of gas injected into Italy’s network in the first half totalled 35.71 billion cubic metres, down 10.3 percent from the same period in 2019 because of the Covid-19 lockdown.

OLT Offshore LNG Toscana, the Italian LNG import facility on the Mediterranean coast, said German utility Uniper has sold its stake in the terminal company to global equity fund First State Investments.

OLT Offshore said the German-owned stake from Uniper amounted to 48.24 percent and has been transferred to First State Investments, though the value of the transaction was not disclosed.

The remaining original shareholders are Italian utility, the Iren Group with 49.07 percent, and vessel owner Golar LNG with 2.69 percent.

The company operates the “FSRU Toscana”, moored 22 kilometres off the coast between the cities of Livorno and Pisa.

The floating storage and regasification unit is connected to the Italian national gas transmission grid through a 36.5km pipeline from the shore to the mainland.

OLT Offshore provides mainly peak-shaving services as part of the Italian government’s energy security and diversification plan.

The new investor First State said it was looking forward to working with its co-shareholders and employees to ensure OLT continues to provide a safe and reliable service.

Since operations began in 2013, the FSRU has handled cargoes from 10 different countries, Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago and the United States.

Re-loaded cargoes are also received from other European terminals such as Rotterdam and those in Spain.

At full capacity, OLT Offshore's terminal can regasify 3.75 billion cubic metres per annum of natural gas, the equivalent of 2.77 million tonnes a year of LNG, or around 4 percent of Italy's annual needs.

As part of the First Investment stake purchase Giovanni Giorgi, currently OLT’s Operations Manager, has been appointed Managing Director in succession to Uniper’s nominee Richard Fleischmann.

Giorgi will serve as joint MD with Alessandro Fino, who has held the role since December 2014.