Page 10 - GLNG Week 14 2021

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North Macedonia eyes role in

Alexandroupolis LNG project

INVESTMENT GREEK LNG developer Gastrade has tapped ago. According to Gastrade, it will provide gas to
another investor for its planned import facility customers not only in Greece but also in Bulgaria
in Alexandroupolis. and North Macedonia, as well as further afield in
The company said it had signed a prelimi- countries like Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Mol-
nary agreement on transferring a stake in itself dova and Ukraine.
to North Macedonian gas distribution operator It is expected to be operational in 2023, but
National Energy Resources Skopje (NER AD). It Gastrade has not yet taken a final investment
also reached a second deal with electricity gener- decision (FID) on construction.
ation firm AD Power Plants of Northern Mace- Gastrade’s managing director, Konstantinos
donia (AD ESM), which is interested in booking Spyropolous, said the agreements with North
some of the terminal’s 5.5bn cubic metres per year Macedonia could be “a basis for further expand-
of regasification capacity on a long-term basis. ing the reach of our project taking also advan-
“The parties will work together in formulating tage of North Macedonia’s strategy location as a
the details of both agreements to be presented to gateway to the markets of the Western Balkans.”
their respective governance bodies for approval,” The main owner of Gastrade is Elmina Cope-
Gastrade said in a statement on April 1. louzos, of Greece’s Copelouzos investment
The Alexandroupolis project calls for the group. She holds a 40% position in the company,
positioning of a floating storage and regasifica- while Bermuda-registered LNG vessel owner
tion unit (FSRU) unit some 18 km south-west GasLog and Greek gas supplier DEPA Commer-
of Alexandroupolis, linked to the national grid cial each have 20%. Bulgaria’s gas transmission
via a 28-km pipeline. It will join another import system operator (TSO) Bulgartransgaz also
terminal in Revithoussa, launched two decades closed the purchase of a 20% stake in January.™

Gazprom, Rusgazdobycha consider

hiring Linde for Ust-Luga complex

PROJECTS & RUSSIA’S Gazprom and Rusgazdobycha now offer Linde a deal worth only €5bn. It is unclear
COMPANIES want to hire Germany’s Linde to work on a gas how this will affect the project’s scope. NewsBase
processing and LNG complex on the Baltic Sea, understands that an EPSS contract typically con-
after cancelling a contract last month issued to stitutes around 60% of the value of an EPC con-
Russian firm Nipigaz. tract, as awarded to Nipigaz. Therefore the cost
Gazprom reported in late March that it had saving is not as significant as it might first appear.
agreed terms with Linde on an engineering, pro- The Ust-Luga development involves the con-
curement and site services (EPSS) contract for struction of a hub capable of annually processing
the Ust-Luga facilities. The letter of intent (LoI) 45bn cubic metres of natural gas into 19 bcm per
signed by the pair “outlines the main terms and year of treated gas, which will be exported via the
conditions of a prospective EPSS contract pro- Nord Stream 2 pipeline, along with 13mn tonnes
viding for engineering services, equipment sup- of LNG, 3.6mn tonnes of ethane and more than
plies, and maintenance of gas processing and 2.2mn tonnes of LPG. Ethane from the project
offsite facilities,” Gazprom said. will be supplied to a nearby petrochemical plant
The Russian gas supplier said last month it that Rusgazdobycha plans to erect on its own.
had mutually agreed with Nipigaz on the can- Gazprom has been working on plans for liq-
cellation of an engineering, procurement and uefaction facilities in north-west Russia for over a
construction (EPC) contract for the facilities, decade. It originally wanted to build a 10mn tonne
in order to optimise costs. The Russian press per year (tpy) LNG terminal with Royal Dutch
claimed Nipigaz had failed to meet project dead- Shell. But the international oil major left the ven-
lines, while the contractor itself, a subsidiary of ture in April 2019 after Gazprom expanded its
petrochemicals group Sibur, said Gazprom and scope to include processing facilities and brought
Rusgazdobycha had not decided yet how to on board Rusgazdobycha as a partner.
finance the scheme. Rusgazdobycha separately reported on April
The value of the contract with Nipigaz was 2 that the Ust-Luga project had received a con-
€10bn ($11.8bn), but Gazprom is looking to struction contract from authorities.™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 14 09•April•2021