LNG

Deutsche Regas GmbH, the operator of the floating liquefied natural gas import terminal at the Baltic Sea port of Lubmin, said a vessel carrying LNG for a second German Baltic regasification terminal had arrived at the port of Mukran on Germany’s largest island of Rügen to begin commissioning.

The floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) “Energos Power” docked at Mukran on the tourist island of Rügen on February 24.

The “Energos Power” is 300 metres in length and is part of a plan to provide adequate natural gas to replace pipeline gas previously received from Russia’s Gazprom.

Deutsche Regas said the “Energos Power” with 174,000 cubic metres capacity had formerly been called the “Transgas Power” and was carrying LNG sourced from Equinor’s liquefaction plant at Hammerfest in northern Norway.

Pipeline to mainland

The Mukran floating LNG operations include a 50 kilometres (31 miles) pipeline that will transport the regasified LNG to the mainland and into the German gas grid.

“As promised, we will begin transferring natural gas from Mukran to Germany's gas transmission network with the ‘Energos Power’ FSRU,” said Deutsche ReGas Chief Executive Stephan Knabe.

“I would like to thank everyone involved, our partner companies and especially our employees for the tireless work and close and constructive cooperation on the project,” Knabe added.

“The ‘Energos Power’ will now enable trial operations to test all land and seaborne systems and to make them all fully operational,” the CEO stated.

The project was also praised as positive for Germany by the Social Democrat (SPD) Commissioner for eastern Germany, Carsten Schneider. He said the floating LNG project was an energy bonus for the Baltic Coast region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

“The Rügen terminal will guarantee Germany's energy independence as well as that of numerous companies,” Carsten explained about the Mukran project that had overcome opposition from environmental activists opposed to fossil fuels.

Opposition

German environmental groups such as Environmental Action Germany (DUH) had accused Deutsche Regas of turning the popular holiday island of Rügen into a “fossil fuel” energy park.

Opponents had fought the Mukran project for more than a year, arguing that Germany's strategic natural gas reserves were already secured with other LNG import terminals.

Currently, other FSRUs are operating at nearby Lubmin, at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe and with a fifth proposed for the port of Stade, also located on the Elbe between Hamburg and Cuxhaven.

Deutsche Regas noted that by mid-year 2024 the FSRU “Neptune” currently deployed at Lubmin would be moved to Mukran to operate alongside the “Energos Power”.

FSRUs in Germany

The other vessels involved in German FLNG projects so far include the Höegh LNG FSRUs “Höegh Esperanza” at Wilhelmshaven and “Hoegh Gannet” at Brunsbüttel as well as the “Neptune”, partly owned by Höegh LNG and chartered to TotalEnergies, and currently operating at the port of Lubmin.

Another ship, a floating storage unit (FSU), the “Seapeak Hispania”, was also anchored near Lubmin to transfer cargoes to the “Neptune” via small-scale LNG carriers.

The Brunsbüttel FSRU is part of LNG operations run by RWE as a forerunner to an onshore terminal being developed by Dutch utility Gasunie, RWE and with a stake held by a German state bank.

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.

Germany’s first floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the “Neptune”, has entered Mukran Port on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen to eventually supply LNG via the privately-held Lubmin project being developed by Deutsche ReGas GmbH.

Höegh LNG Partners, the owner and operator of five floating storage and regasification units, has completed the refinancing of two FSRUs contracted as floating import terminals in Indonesia and Turkey.