German gas market issues liquidity buffer total taking account of LNG and the Dutch Groningen gas field closure
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.
Germany follows UK in easing uneconomic goals on path to New Zero and clears way for LNG boost
Growing liquefied natural gas importer Germany has started following the UK in rolling back uneconomic goals for achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 with the German coalition government agreeing to relax environmental codes for the construction industry to boost the economy and increase energy requirements.
Deutsche ReGas and German TSO Gascade plan ‘Open House’ on Rügen Island to explain LNG expansion
Deutsche ReGas GmbH, the German owner of the floating LNG terminal at the Baltic port of Lubmin, and German Transmission System Operator, Gascade GmbH, are organising a “town hall” event to try and clear the way for the fifth out of six proposed floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) to be deployed off Mukran Port on Rügen, Germany’s largest island in the Baltic Sea.
The Ministry of Economics is determined that at least one of the six government-chartered FSRUs be deployed at Rügen, near Lubmin, before winter 2023 to handle an additional five billion cubic metres per annum of regasified LNG .
The plans call for import facilities to be established off the southeast cost of Rügen several kilometres from the resorts of Sassnitz and Ostseebad-Blinz.
This Rügen FSRU plan has led to opposition and some demonstrations from locals backed by Green party activitists who believe that the replacement energy sources for halted Russian pipeline gas would harm the tourist industry on the island in what was a part of the former East Germany.
Deutsche Regas and Gascade have called the public meeting for the town of Ostseebad-Binz on June 20 as imports are due to start before the end of the year.
Progress
As part of efforts to replace lost Russian pipeline gas supplies, the German government has been installing LNG terminals along its coast with the first to start operations in January 2023 being the Deutsche Regas terminal at Lubmin.
The facilities at Lubmin are about 40 nautical miles from Sassnitz and Mukran port that are part of the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
As 2023 has progressed, Berlin has inaugurated several other FSRUs at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River.
The floating LNG terminals import gas mainly from the US and Qatar and the volumes are delivered into the German energy grid and beyond.
There are also plans for some of the FSRUs to be replaced by permanent onshore regasification facilities as in Brunsbüttel.
Deutsche Regas has advertised the town hall-style gathering on its Web site proclaiming “citizen information event about the LNG terminal in Mukran”.
The event has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 20, at 5 pm local time at the Kurhaus-Saal venue near Schillerstraße in Ostseebad-Binz.
“All are welcome and a project presentation will start at 5:45 pm followed by a questions and answers session with the end of the event scheduled for 7:00pm,” said Deutsche Regas and Gascade in their invitation.
Open Season June 29
Deutsche Regas is trying to clear the way for the June 29 Open Season launch for Phase II capacity of the LNG terminal expansion to Mukran port.
“In Phase II, it is planned to operate the floating LNG terminal consisting of two FSRUs in the port of Mukran from December 2023 and to connect it to the gas pipeline network via a new connecting line between Mukran and Lubmin,” explained Deutsche Regas in a statement.
“In Phase II, the planned annual throughput capacity for natural gas is up to 13.5 billion cubic metres,” it added.
Gascade was involved in helping with the development of the Deutsche Regas FRSU terminal at Lubmin.
In just a few weeks, Gascade completed the pipeline link to the gas landfall at Greifswald with connections to the NEL (North European Natural Gas Pipeline), OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungsleitung) and EUGAL (European Gas Pipeline Link) connections to the gas grids of the rest of Germany and the European Union.
RWE utility signs one of Germany's largest LNG supply deals with US Sempra’s Port Arthur project in Texas
US LNG project developer Sempra Infrastructure has entered into a long-term sale and purchase agreement with a unit of German utility RWE AG for volumes from the Port Arthur project in Texas.
First German LNG terminal makes commercial and regulatory progress backed by Dutch
German LNG Terminal, the joint venture company developing the European nation’s first regasification facility at Brunsbuettel on the Elbe River near the port of Hamburg said it had reached another long-term commercial capacity agreement.
