Germany welcomed on Tuesday the first tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the newly opened LNG import terminal at Wilhelmshaven, with the cargo arriving from the Calcasieu Pass export facility in the United States.
The LNG ship Maria Energy, owned by Tsakos Energy Navigation, was loaded in Calcasieu Pass at the liquefaction facility of LNG supplier Venture Global on December 19, 2022, the operator of the Wilhelmshaven import terminal, Uniper, said today.
The Maria Energy tanker was fully loaded with around 170,000 cubic meters of LNG, or 97,147,000 cubic meters of natural gas, which is enough to supply around 50,000 German households with energy for one year, Uniper added.
The LNG cargo delivered on board Maria Energy is part of the commissioning process at the Wilhelmshaven terminal. Commercial operations of the terminal are expected to start in the middle of January 2023.
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“The use of LNG as a reliable energy source is crucial for the Security of Supply for Germany and Europe. We are committed to contribute our part by bringing more LNG to the European market and especially Germany via the Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel Regas Terminals,” said Niek den Hollander, Uniper CCO.
Germany inaugurated its first floating LNG import terminal at Wilhelmshaven a week before Christmas as Europe’s biggest economy looks to cut reliance on Russian gas and as Moscow cut supply via the Nord Stream pipeline in early September.
Other LNG terminals are also planned in Germany, which was rather reluctant to commit to LNG import facilities before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the war started, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and countries in southern Europe hastened to bring forward or dust off plans to build floating LNG terminals to have enough regasification capacity to replace the lost volumes of Russian pipeline gas.
Germany saw the share of Russian gas in its gas mix drop to some 20% last year from 55% in 2021, according to data from energy lobby group BDEW cited by Bloomberg last month.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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