energy
When is Germany’s first liquefied natural gas terminal coming?
The LNG bunker ship “Kairos” calls at the port of Hamburg. Planning for the first German import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is currently underway at several locations in northern Germany. Photo: Christian Charisius/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The Ukraine crisis drastically shows the geopolitical explosive power of natural gas. High dependency on one source is dangerous. LNG could contribute to diversification.
The plans for Germany’s first LNG terminal are getting political momentum. It involves investments totaling around 1.5 billion euros. Stade and Brunsbüttel compete for pole position.
Even if it will still take some time, there is currently a good deal to be said for developing the infrastructure for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Other countries are much further along. There are already 26 LNG terminals in the EU.
«Not least the Ukraine crisis and the increased energy prices show us that Germany must become less dependent on gas supplies and bilateral agreements with individual countries. LNG can be the right way here, »says Lower Saxony’s Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann (CDU).
Positive signals come and came from the new and the old federal government. Fueled by a possible war scenario on the Ukrainian eastern border, the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which has become a political issue, and the high gas prices, LNG is moving into focus as a bridge energy source.
The application documents should be handed in in Stade in the summer. There are different approval authorities for the jetty planned directly on the Elbe and the terminal on the site of the chemical company Dow Chemical. Johann Killinger estimates that the approval process could take one to one and a half years in the best-case scenario. “Then we can start building.”
Commissioning 2026?
Killinger is the managing partner of Hanseatic Energy Hub GmbH (HEH), which is planning the terminal.
If everything goes smoothly, the commissioning would be in 2026. The key figures: 800 million euros in investments, plus around 150 to 200 million euros for the public port facilities. In the final stage, up to 12 billion cubic meters of gas per year are to be fed into the German grid. HEH is aiming for around ten percent of annual German gas consumption as discharge volume from Stade.
“LNG terminals are an additional bypass. They help to increase security of supply, »said Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) to the «Handelsblatt». “And we need terminals for hydrogen imports anyway. We can then share parts of the infrastructure. The situation this winter was tight, and you have to draw a political conclusion from that.”
A higher proportion of LNG would put the sources of natural gas on a broader basis, but would not change Germany’s dependence on imports. Germany has to import 95 percent of its natural gas. The in-house production of 5 percent comes almost exclusively from Lower Saxony. Major global LNG exporters include Qatar, Australia, the US and Algeria.
“Although Germany does not have its own LNG terminals, it can be supplied with LNG at short notice via the market in the Netherlands and via the European gas network,” says Kerstin Andreae, head of the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). There are direct infrastructure connections to Germany to the LNG terminals in Dunkerque (France), Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Zeebrugge (Belgium).
Hasn’t worked out so far
Due to the good connections and the low LNG demand in Germany, the construction of LNG terminals in Germany has not been economical so far, says Andreae. “Should there be a desire for German LNG terminals for economic reasons, then these costs would have to be subsidized in part.”
It will take a while anyway, because the project plans for a planned terminal in Brunsbüttel are also dragging on. Around four years after the project was presented, there is still no date for a final investment decision, as a spokeswoman for German LNG Terminal GmbH said. It is a very complex, costly and long-term investment. According to earlier information, the project should have a capacity of around 8 billion cubic meters of natural gas and, at around 450 million euros, be one of the most important industrial settlements in the north.
LNG is frozen at minus 162 degrees, transported in liquid form by ship, landed, heated, “regasified” and then fed into the networks. There are considerable doubts about the carbon footprint of LNG and also about the planned terminals. The German Environmental Aid considers both projects to be unapprovable. Even in Habeck’s party and his former political home there is rejection. At their party conference last Sunday, the Greens, who are co-governing in a Jamaica coalition in Schleswig-Holstein, voted against an LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel. “Schleswig-Holstein does not need an LNG terminal,” says the resolution. Even a compromise proposal failed.
The Brunsbüttel project as a “national LNG terminal” is part of the coalition agreement between the CDU, Greens and FDP. However, the government’s term of office will end soon. Schleswig-Holstein elects a new state parliament on May 8th.
In addition: Five years have passed since the coalition agreement, and environmentalists are pushing more and more vehemently for quicker action. “Building LNG terminals takes years and does nothing to change Germany’s dependence on fossil fuels. Fracking gas that is harmful to the climate is not an answer to a secure energy supply, but part of the fossil dead end,” argues Greenpeace energy expert Gerald Neubauer. His request to the traffic light government: to initiate the climate-friendly heating transition by phasing out natural gas by 2035.