LNG, hydrogen, pipelines: Belgium’s contribution to energy security

As a transit country for energy supplies from all over the world, Belgium is currently playing a key role. With its ports, the country plays a key role in distributing oil and gas across Europe.

The safety precautions are enormous: high walls seal off the site, visitors have to register, photos or filming are prohibited. No wonder: after all, the port facility in Zeebrugge, Belgium, plays a key role in gas supply in Europe.

The Fluxys company operates pipelines, storage facilities and – currently in great demand – a large unloading station for tankers with liquid gas from all over the world, for example from Qatar or the USA. “We are at an important crossroads for international gas transport,” says Fluxys spokesman Laurent Remy. “We are connected to the gas fields in Norway, to the British markets, to France and, thanks to our LNG terminal, to 20 different liquid gas producers. That means: Those who use our pipeline systems have access to a wide range when it comes to gas supply. “

Four times Belgium’s consumption goes to Germany

Germany is one of the main customers. Last year, around a fifth of Germany’s gas requirements were covered by deliveries from Zeebrugge. In the meantime it should be significantly more, because demand has risen sharply since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Our customers deliver a huge amount of gas to Germany and the Netherlands, from where it is also forwarded to Germany,” says Remy. “To put it in a nutshell: in the last three months alone, four times as much gas has flowed through our systems to Germany as is consumed in Belgium.”

Fluxys also wants to play a role as an infrastructure provider in the future – for example with a plant that can liquefy biogas. In addition, CO2 from European industrial sites is to be channeled into underground storage facilities off the Norwegian coast. And: In the near future, it will no longer be polluting gas that will flow through the pipelines and terminals, but clean hydrogen, if that should be technically possible. “Hydrogen is something completely different from natural gas. But we are currently examining whether we can continue to use the existing lines,” says Fluxys spokesman Remy. “If not, then of course we are ready to build new pipelines to transport hydrogen.”

Great interest of German politics

A hundred kilometers to the east, the course is also being set for a greener, cleaner energy supply. The port of Antwerp, one of the largest in the world, wants to become the central hub for the import of green hydrogen and also get into production itself, with electricity from wind farms in the North Sea. The world’s first hydrogen filling station for ships, trucks and buses is already in operation.

“It’s this story of the chicken and the egg,” says Wim Dillen, head of development at the Antwerp/Bruges port company. “The shipping companies and freight forwarders always say: ‘We can’t switch to hydrogen because there are no filling stations’. We’re showing here that it’s possible and want to get people to rethink their attitude. We make sure that fuel is filled up can be made that are much greener and don’t produce CO2.”

Hydrogen, liquid gas terminals, pipelines: Belgium is the transit country for energy supplies to Western Europe – and is particularly important for Germany in the current crisis. At the beginning of the week, the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, asked around in Zeebrugge, Antwerp and Brussels; her colleagues from North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia were also there. And Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer wants to come next. So German politicians seem to be very interested in good contacts with the small neighboring country.