Status: 12/21/2022 12:58 p.m
The federal government’s LNG plans are making progress. The operation of the first liquefied natural gas terminal in Wilhelmshaven started in the morning. The first LNG ship has meanwhile arrived in Lubmin.
The federal government has come a step closer to its goal of becoming less dependent on Russian gas. Today – one day earlier than planned – the gas importer Uniper started commissioning the first German import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Wilhelmshaven.
According to Uniper, shortly after 9 a.m., the first gas was fed from the terminal ship “Höegh Esperanza” into the connection pipeline, which had been built within ten months. “The fact that the first gas is already flowing through our LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven is further proof of the determination with which everyone involved is driving the project forward,” says Holger Kreetz, the Uniper manager responsible for investment planning.
LNG for up to 80,000 households
According to Kreetz, the test phase is now beginning and should be completed by the end of February. Originally, Uniper had planned to feed gas from LNG supplies into the German gas grid for the first time in Wilhelmshaven on December 22nd. According to a spokesman, the fact that things are going faster now is due to the close cooperation between authorities and companies in the realization of the terminal, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) opened on Saturday together with other leaders of the traffic light government. Uniper operates the terminal with the support of the federal government.
The special ship “Höegh Esperanza” reached Wilhelmshaven last Thursday fully loaded with around 165,000 cubic meters of LNG on board and moored at the newly built jetty. The ship is the technical heart of the terminal, where the liquefied gas delivered is regasified and pumped ashore. According to Uniper, the amount of LNG that the ship has on board is enough to supply 50,000 to 80,000 households in Germany for a year.
During the commissioning phase, the ship will feed between 15 and 155 gigawatt hours of natural gas into the gas network every day. The gas is used to commission the newly built, around 26-kilometer-long connecting pipeline from Wilhelmshaven to Etzel in East Frisia, but it is also available to the market. Commercial operation of the floating terminal is planned from mid-January. Then, with the arrival of the first LNG ship, the “next milestone” is planned, said Uniper manager Kreetz.
Permits for Terminal Lubmin are still pending
Also this morning, a tanker with the first load of liquefied natural gas for the terminal in Lubmin arrived off Rügen. According to Deutsche Regas, the Seapeak Hispania loaded 140,000 cubic meters of LNG from Egypt. The group announced that she had reached her anchorage east of the island of Rügen in the early hours of the morning.
However, approvals for the commissioning of the LNG terminal in Lubmin are still missing. In the meantime, Deutsche Regas has applied for trial operation. The Schwerin Environment Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) announced at the beginning of the week that approval for this could be granted in a few days.
The “Seapeak Hispania” is to serve as an interim storage facility on the Baltic Sea in the future. Smaller tankers are to transport the LNG from there through the shallow Greifswalder Bodden to the actual terminal in Lubmin. According to Deutsche Regas, the ship was assigned an anchorage in the Prorer Wiek, about seven kilometers northeast of the Sellin pier.