Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, is strongly believed to be working on a plan to build as much as 70.7 million tons per year of LNG import capacity by 2030, which will make the country the fourth-largest LNG import capacity holder in the world by the end of this decade.
Citing plans by the German economy ministry and energy group RWE, Argus reported yesterday that Germany no longer receives Russian gas via Nord Stream, which was sabotaged in the autumn of 2022.
Before the incident, Russia had slashed pipeline flows via Nord Stream, citing Western sanctions that prevented gas turbine maintenance. Faced with the prospect of no Russian gas this winter, Germany rushed to install floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs).
Whereas two of the FSRUs are already operational, then report said Germany plans to have a total of 10 FSRUs, some of which will be removed and replaced by onshore regasification facilities once they are built.
The rush to have LNG import terminals as soon as possible will make Germany the fourth largest import capacity holder behind the major Asian LNG buyers South Korea, China, and Japan, according to Argus.
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It is important to note that several of these projects are proposals and there is no guarantee they will all be built, the report also said.
It will be recalled that Germany inaugurated its first floating LNG import terminal at Wilhelmshaven a week before Christmas.
In early January, Germany welcomed the first tanker carrying LNG at the newly opened LNG import terminal at Wilhelmshaven, with the cargo arriving from the Calcasieu Pass export facility in the United States.
Two weeks later, TotalEnergies said it would supply LNG and is contributing an FSRU to the newly opened Deutsche Ostsee LNG import terminal in Lubmin on the German Baltic Sea coast. TotalEnergies has also contracted regasification capacity of 2.6 billion cubic meters of gas per year and began to deliver LNG from its global integrated portfolio to the Lubmin terminal.
Separately, Switzerland-based trader MET Group said last month it had secured binding long-term LNG capacities at the Lubmin terminal. Last week, Germany welcomed the first shipment of LNG from the Middle East, from Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC, which delivered cargo to the Elbehafen floating LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel.
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The shipment of 137,000 cubic meters of LNG was the commissioning cargo for the new floating LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel, the Argus report said.
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