Page 11 - GLNG Week 05

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Estonian gas firm sees weaker sales in 2019
PERFORMANCE
EG is the region’s biggest truck-to-ship bunkering provider.
ESTONIA’S top gas seller Eesti Gaas (EG) suf- fered a 14% reduction in gas sales last year, blam- ing the decline on warm weather and “fierce competition”.
The European gas market is oversupplied, with LNG imports at a record high despite lack- lustre demand. EG, which operates in all three Baltic gas markets and in Finland, reported on February 4 selling 4,140 GWh (396mn cubic metres) of gas last year, down from 4,726 GWh (452 mcm) in 2018.
e bright spot was the company’s LNG busi- ness, which reported an 8% growth in sales to 263 GWh (25.1 mcm). EG is the region’s biggest truck-to-ship bunkering provider, operating at Tallinn in Estonia and Helsinki and Hanko in Finland.
“Last year, we took on new clients in Finland, Latvia and Russia, which boosted LNG sales,” CEO Ants Noot said.
EG’s largest contract is for refuelling the
Megastar passenger ferry owned by Estonia’s Tallink, which it secured in early 2018. e rm gets its LNG supplies primarily from the Cyro- gas-Vysotsk export terminal in neighbouring Russia.
e company also saw growth its CNG busi- ness, with sales up more than 60% at 83 GWh (7.9 mcm). e majority of this gas is extracted from biological waste and is used as a vehi- cle fuel or for heating and small-scale power generation.
“In the context of the strict climate policy at the global level and in the EU, we can expect the sales of green gas to be increasing in the nearest years,” Noot said. “Estonia has the potential for generating way more green gas than it is produc- ing today.”
EG also expanded electricity sales last year by over 46% to 132.4 GWh, a er focusing on building up its business in Estonia and Latvia. It signed up 11,000 new clients during the year.™
Eastern European countries to prepare grids for US LNG
POLICY
LAST week, 11 Eastern European countries have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on developing their gas networks, as part of a Washington-backed project to facilitate sup- plies of US LNG to the region.
e document was signed by Albania’s Alb- gaz, Bosnia’s BH-Gas, Bulgaria’s Bulgartrans- gaz, Croatia’s Plinacro, Greece’s Desfa, Kosovo’s economic development ministry, North Mac- edonia’s GA-MA AD - Skopje, Montenegro’s Montenegro Bonus, Poland’s Gaz-System, Romania’s Transgaz and Slovakia’s Eustream, as well as the United States Energy Association (USEA).
ey are all members of the Partnership for Development of Natural Gas Networks in East- ern Europe (EE-NGP), set up by USEA and the United States Agency for International Develop- ment (USAID) in 2017, with the goal of “facili- tating the creation of a regional gas market with potential for US deliveries.”
Transgaz said on February 4 it had signed the MoU in order to work with other grid oper- ators to plan networks and establish alternative sources of gas supply.
Many countries in Southeast Europe rely heavily on Russian gas, and in some cases, it is their only option. The situation is starting to change, however.
On the one hand, new import projects are underway, including LNG regasi cation plants in Greece and Croatia, and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will run through Albania and Greece and terminate in Italy and which is due to supply gas from Azerbaijan starting this year. On the other, new pipelines are being laid across borders to distribute these new supplies across the region.
EE-NGP is not the only initiative aimed at expanding the market for US LNG in Eastern Europe. In August, the US, Poland and Ukraine signed an MoU to enhance the region’s energy security by increasing US gas supply. e three countries want to develop a supply chain to transport US gas from Polish LNG terminals to Ukraine, and possibly other neighbouring countries such as Romania. Achieving this will require an expansion in Poland’s LNG import capacity, however, as well as the cross-border capacity between Poland and Ukraine.™
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