LNG News Editor:
Adriatic LNG, the company that owns and operates the largest LNG regasification terminal in Italy located 17 kilometres off the Veneto coastline, is launching its open season in September to allocate regasification capacity for up to 25 years.
Adriatic LNG said the open season would consist of an initial, non-binding qualification phase until the end of November 2021 and a second binding phase for the allocation of capacity that is expected to take place in December 2021.
Med market
“The regasification company is working to realize one of the most important events in the Mediterranean market for the future of the supply of energy to Italy and Europe,” said a statement.
“The open season will be an extraordinary opportunity for LNG market players to subscribe to long-term regasification capacity with the leading operator in Italy,” it added.
The terminal has been on line since autumn 2009 and is a private operator which enables cargo imports amounting to about 10 percent of the national gas consumption of Italy.
It has so far handled about 800 cargoes at its gravity-based structure facilities. The terminal includes two LNG storage tanks, each with a capacity of 125,000 cubic metres.
The terminal includes a regasification plant with four open-rack LNG vaporizers, one heat recovery LNG vaporizer, two cryogenic compressors, four in-tank pumps to pump LNG from the tanks, and five pumps to pump LNG into the vaporizers.
“Developed as a strategic infrastructure for the country for its contribution to the diversification of energy supply, Adriatic LNG at present has contributed to satisfying national Italian needs by delivering more than 73 billion cubic metres of gas to the national gas grid,” said the company.
Suppliers
The cargoes have come from a great variety of carriers from 65,000 cubic metres capacity vessels up to the 217,000 cubic metres capacity carriers from Qatar.
The eight supplying countries so far have been Qatar, Angola, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Nigeria and the US.
Adriatic LNG is co-controlled by ExxonMobil Italiana Gas and Qatar Terminal Ltd, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, while Italian gas network operator SNAM has a 7.3 percent shareholding.
The terminal is connected to Italy’s natural gas national grid by a 40km offshore pipeline extending from the terminal to a metering station near Cavarzere and an 85km pipeline from Cavarzere to an interconnection with the national grid near Minerbio in the north-central Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, about 15km from Bologna.
The terminal currently has available 1.6 Bcm per annum of existing capacity. The terminal can be optimized to offer additional capacity of 1.0 Bcm per annum in excess of the existing capacity without requiring any modifications.
On top of that, another 6.4 Bcm per annum of existing capacity will become available in December 2034.
Regulatory approvals
Adriatic LNG is also working to complete regulatory approvals for the additional capacity and received, on August 18th 2021, an exemption from the requirement of obtaining a full environmental impact assessment.
Adriatic LNG expects to secure all required approvals prior to the beginning of the binding portion of the open season, referred to as binding “Phase 2”.
More information for interested parties is available from the Adriatic LNG Web site.
The leaflet provides information about regasification capacity and products that will be offered through the open season, key provisions regulating access to service and capacity allocation, as well as details about bidding phases, valuation and allocation methodology.
The Adriatic LNG open season details are available at www.adriaticlng.it
