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EurOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT EurOil

Netherlands to receive floating

LNG plant in early August

NETHERLANDS A floating LNG plant is expected to arrive at the It is currently still moored in Singapore but will
Eemshaven port in the Netherlands’ Groningen begin its three-month journey to the Nether-
The Netherlands aims province in early August, helping the country lands in May.
to double its LNG and the wider region overcome dependence on S188 will help support European energy secu-
import capacity. Russian gas. rity in the near term, but Gasunie plans to replace
The Netherlands was formerly a net exporter it with a permanent LNG facility at a later stage.
of natural gas, and swung to becoming an This permanent station may also handle green
importer in 2018 as a result of the continued hydrogen in the future, giving it a role to play in
phase-out of production at the giant Groningen the Dutch energy transition.
field. The field is due to shut down completely “We will now enter further negotiations with
next year, because of decades of earthquakes potential customers,” Ulco Vermeulen, member
caused by production activities. of Gasunie’s board, said in a statement this week.
The Dutch government has enlisted gas “They will be the ones who will be using our ter-
transmission operator Gasunie to double the minal in the near future, initially for LNG, and
country’s LNG import capacity to 24bn cubic later for green hydrogen.”
metres per year in order to wean itself off sup-
ply from Russia’s Gazprom. Under this plan, the German progress
existing Gate terminal in Rotterdam is due to be In related news, Tree Energy Solutions (TES)
expanded by 5-8 bcm, in addition to an expan- announced on April 25 an open season tender
sion agreed earlier that will raise its capacity from for German LNG imports at a planned termi-
12 to 13.4 bcm per year by 2024. The Eemshaven nal in Wilhelmshaven. Germany’s various LNG
terminal, named EemsEnergyTerminal, mean- projects are finally making concrete progress and
while, is expected to bring shore about 6 bcm per fast, following Berlin’s decision to axe the Nord
year of gas. Stream 2 pipeline.
EemsEnergyTerminal will be connected to Importers are invited to file a preliminary bid
existing infrastructure that is currently used by in the process to reserve LNG import capacity
the Groningen field, which the Dutch govern- from 2025 onwards. A round for binding offers
ment has refused to keep open for longer in light will be held once TES has evaluated non-bind-
of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Exmar’s S188 ing expressions of interest. This terminal too is
floating LNG plant has been hired under a five- expected to bring ashore clean hydrogen at a later
year charter to provide regasification services. stage. ™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 17 27•April•2022