LNG

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.

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.

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.

A fire apparently caused by a drone attack broke out at a Baltic Sea fuel terminal in Russia owned by the largest Russian liquefied natural gas producer Novatek.

“There were no casualties as a result of the fire at the Novatek terminal in the port of Ust-Luga and the personnel were evacuated,” said a statement from the authorities in the Ust-Luga area near the Gulf of Finland and called the Leningrad region.

The Ust-Luga complex is located about 170 kilometres (105 miles) west of the city of St. Petersburg and processes stable gas condensate.

This is a very light oil obtained by separation from natural gas during production and during distillation the condensate at Uist-Luga produces fuels such as heavy naphtha, jet fuel, fuel oil and gasoil..

Novatek in addition to the Ust-Luga complex also owns the Yamal LNG export plant that still ships cargoes to Western Europe and China from the Yamal Peninsula in Arctic Russia.

Condensate

Novatek said in its most recent earnings statement on January 17, 2024, that the volume of condensate handled at the complex in Ust-Luga rose by 0.4 percent to 7 million tonnes.

Russian news agencies reported that two storage tanks and a pumping station had been damaged at Ust-Luga but that a fire had been brought under control with no one was reported injured.

Novatek said in a statement it had suspended some operations after the fire which it said was the result of “external influences”.

Novatek added that the production process at Novatek-Ust-Luga has been suspended and a damage assessment process had started.

Analysts note that Russia and Ukraine have been targeting each other’s energy infrastructure in drone strikes designed to disrupt supply lines and logistics since the conflict began in February 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Ust-Luga port area was also well known for its connections to the former Gazprom-operated natural gas Nord Stream pipelines that are no longer in operation.

Nord Stream gas

The Nord Stream pipelines were ruptured in September 2022 in still unexplained sabotage attacks that halted all Russian pipeline gas exports to Germany and the European Union.

The Nord Stream II pipeline bypassed EU members Poland and Lithuania, as well as the traditional pipeline transit nation of Ukraine on its 1,200-kilometres route from Ust-Luga to Greifswald near the Baltic port of Lubmin in northeast Germany and carried 55 billion cubic metres of gas.

The other main Gazprom gas pipeline export route to Germany was the Nord Stream I pipeline which ran from Vyborg port in northwest Russia to the same German landfall near Lubmin, which is now the site of a German LNG import terminal.

Trading Hub Europe GmbH, Germany’s market area manager for the nation’s natural gas system and now including deliveries to three LNG import destinations, has issued its latest report on the calculation basis for accounting charges and liquidity buffers in the German natural gas market.

The German Association of Transmission System Operators (FNB Gas), has outlined the future role of liquefied natural gas facilities at the coastal locations of the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River and at the Baltic Port of Lubmin.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz formally opened the nation’s second liquefied natural gas terminal since its reliance on Russian pipeline gas came to a close in 2022 and fast-track developments have been made possible due to the support and know-how in particular of French and Dutch energy and shipping companies.

Jan 13 (LNGJ) - TotalEnergies said an official inauguration ceremony would be held on Saturday, January 14, for the floating LNG import terminal at the Baltic port of Lubmin and attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to mark commissioning. The floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the “Neptune”, was chartered from TotalEnergies by the Lubmin project developers, a private company called Deutsche ReGas GmbH.

   “The vessel has an annual regasification capacity of 5 billion cubic metres of gas, enough to cover about 5 percent of German demand,” said the French major. “Following Deutsche ReGas’s open season procedure in October 2022 TotalEnergies also contracted regasification capacity of 2.6 Bcm per year and began to deliver LNG from its global integrated portfolio to the Lubmin terminal,” added TotalEnergies.

Varo Energy Group, has acquired control of Dutch company Bio Energy Coevorden BV a leading European producer of biogas made from waste, and aims to double production as it forecasts a 10-fold rise in Bio-LNG demand in Europe by countries like new LNG importer Germany.