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.

A leading port services provider S5 Agency World with its global headquarters in London and hub operations from Rotterdam to Singapore, has agreed a contract with Deutsche ReGas GmbH, the operator of the German Baltic sea LNG import terminal at Lubmin.

Deutsche ReGas GmbH, a private company running the floating LNG import project at the German Baltic port of Lubmin to supply 4.5 million tonnes per annum of cargoes, has started a series of complex operations using a variety of vessels as part of its commissioning process.

The port of Lubmin in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is best known as the landfall for the shutdown Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea from Russia.

Lubmin has been chosen by the German Federal Government as one of four coastal hubs for LNG floating storage and regasification (FSRU) imports because of existing German gas grid links.

Deutsche ReGas said that in the first phase of its project the natural gas would be fed into the German long-distance gas pipeline network (EUGAL/NEL), which is only 450 metres away.

The EUGAL gas pipeline was designed to be the onshore extension of the Nord Stream II project that was never started up.

The company also explained that to take account of the shallow depth of the water around the port of Lubmin, another tanker would be stationed outside the shallower approaches to which LNG carriers of up to 170,000 cubic metres would be able to dock and make LNG transfers.

The company explained that from the floating storage unit, three shuttle ships (small LNG carriers) would transport the LNG to the FSRU in the Lubmin industrial port.

Small carriers

The small-scale LNG carrier, the “Coral Furcata” with 10,000 cubic metres capacity arrived at Lubmin on December 30 with the first cargo to be used for commissioning purposes.

“The LNG was previously picked up by the ‘Hispania’, anchored off Rügen, and will now be handed over to the ‘Neptune’, which is in the port, as part of the permitted test operations of the LNG terminal,” explained Deutsche ReGas.

“The test operation is very extensive and complex,” stated the company.

“At sea, the procedures between the FSU anchored off Rügen island and the small-scale LNG carriers must be rehearsed,” it added.

“The manoeuvring of the SLNGCs in the port of Lubmin and the interaction with the tug crews must now also become a reality after previous training,” said Deutsche ReGas.

The company added that the interfaces between the FSRU and the shore connection as well as the FSRU and the shuttle ship must be further prepared and tested.

“During this phase on the ‘Neptune’, all of the processes and systems required for commissioning must be prepared. This is then followed by various operational tests, which usually end with a reliability and endurance test of the feed pumps,” the company said.

Deutsche ReGas said that as part of the test operations, the first quantities of LNG are being regasified and supplied to the German network operator Gascade GmbH.

“But we don't want to call this a feed-in, so as not to build up false expectations here,” the company emphasized.

Stephan Knabe, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche ReGas, said he would like to state that the feed-in, i.e. commercial operation, only begins with the start of regular operations immediately after the successful completion of the test phase and after receipt of the operating permit.

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.

The German Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), has exempted Deutsche ReGas GmbH and its LNG import terminal project, Deutsche Ostsee, at the Baltic port of Lubmin from tariff and network access regulations.

Deutsche ReGas, a private company that has raised financing from Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital, is run by two businessmen from Potsdam near Berlin and said it aimed to import LNG in the next few months at the Baltic port of Lubmin.