LNG

The PX Group, which operates the UK St. Fergus Gas Terminal and Teesside Gas Processing Plant, has been appointed by North Sea Midstream Partners (NSMP) to run its recently acquired small-scale Risavika LNG liquefaction plant in Norway.

PX Group, which specializes in providing services in the process, energy and chemical sectors, is currently responsible for processing around 30 percent of the UK’s gas supply and operates many of the UK’s key strategic sites on behalf of clients.

“The represents PX Group’s first significant operations contract outside of the UK,” said Chief Executive Geoff Holmes.

NSMP acquired the Risavika LNG plant, located in southwest Norway near Stavanger, in November 2021.

The Risavika facility has a capacity of 300,000 tonnes of LNG per annum and operates predominantly on electricity produced from renewable sources.

The plant was formerly owned by Gasum of Finland and uses feed gas from offshore Norway to supply the LNG maritime fuel and truck transportation markets.

The PX Group said it had set up a new operating entity in Norway, PX Norge AS.

NSMP closed the deal to buy the Risavika plant on November 16.

NSMP agreed with Gasum an extensive tolling agreement under which Gasum would continue to ensure deliveries of LNG and liquefied biogas (LBG) to its customers from the Risavika facility.

The separate bunkering solution, serving maritime customers, is not included in the scope of the NSMP-Gasum transaction and both parties agreed at the time not to disclose the transaction price.

PX Group CEO Holmes added that his company was delighted to be joining NSMP at Risavika.

“It is exciting for PX Group on a number of levels, not least because it represents PX Group’s expanding international footprint. It’s also our first major LNG site, which is in our capability sweet spot,” stated Holmes.

“LNG plays a critical role in the energy mix and is a component in the transition to lower-carbon sources of energy for sectors such as maritime,” said the CEO.

Finnish natural gas company Gasum has entered commercial operations with its new quayside liquefied natural gas bunkering facilities at the Swedish port of Nynashamn.

Samskip, a Dutch shipping company based in Rotterdam and owner of two LNG-powered multi-modal vessels, and Gasum of Finland have signed an accord for the ships to be refuelled at the Gasum-owned small-scale liquefaction plant at Risavika in Norway.

The Finnish gas market has opened up to competition with a wholesale market for pipeline natural gas after the transmission network was unbundled from LNG and gas firm Gasum.

Gasum, the natural gas network company in Finland and a leading Nordic liquefied natural gas supplier, reported nine-month earnings down by 7.2 percent as its clean energy policies proved to be slow in growing profits as it also prepared for the opening up of the market with the spinning off of a new company called Gasgrid Finland.

The Finnish liquefied natural gas-powered icebreaker “Polaris”, the first of its kind in the world, has completed its first bunkering operation at the Tornio Manga import terminal in Finland.

There are two Finnish import terminals at Tornio and Pori. The “Polaris”, which runs on both low-sulfur marine diesel and LNG, requires around 700 cubic metres of LNG when re-fueling.

It can be bunkered either in port in a quayside truck-to-ship operation or at a terminal. The “Polaris” is in the government-owned ice-breaking fleet of Arctia and is one of eight vessels.

The “Polaris” area of operations is with two other ice-breakers assisting shipping traffic in the Bothnian Bay area of the northern Baltic Sea.

“The Nordic region’s largest LNG receiving terminal provided the cleanest fuel in a port surrounded by ice at least four months a year,” said Arctia of the latest fuel operation.

Finland’s Arctech Helsinki Shipyard built the “Polaris” and its first bunkering was carried out in June 2016 by the Skangas unit of Finnish natural gas company Gasum.
This was a truck-to-ship bunkering operation organized at Vuosaari harbour in Finland.

The LNG-powered “Polaris” is designed to continuously move through ice that is up to 1.6 metres thick.

The vessel can also break a 25-metre wide channel in 1.2 metre-thick ice at a speed of 6 knots, as well as to reach 9-11 knots of average assistance speed in the Baltic Sea.

Gasum is the leading Nordic supplier of LNG as well as having regasification and bunkering assets to cater for various markets from shipping to the industrial sectors in Finland, Sweden and Norway.

In addition to the two import terminals, Gasum owns a small-scale liquefaction plant in Risavika in Norway and two other regasification terminals at Ora in Norway and in Lysekil in Sweden.

Gasum, the natural gas network owner in Finland and an LNG distributor and regasification terminal operator through its subsidiary Skangas, has sold its technical unit to the Finnish Viafin Service Group.

Lyse Group, the Norwegian company owned by 16 municipalities that first acquired waterfall rights one hundred years ago to help develop hydro-electric power stations, has sold its remaining 30 percent in Nordic LNG company Skangas to majority-owner Gasum of Finland.