LNG terminal in Stade: Will the special ship now be lost?
The LNG terminal in Stade stalls as the special ship leaves for southern Europe—but the gas hub may still have a future.
A superstructure is required for the use of a special ship for the regasification of liquefied natural gas. This special jetty connects the ship to the infrastructure on land, for example for feeding gas into the long-distance grid.
(Image: DET)
The commissioning of the LNG terminal in Stade, Lower Saxony, continues to be delayed. The US financial news agency Bloomberg is now reporting that the special ship "Energos Force" chartered by the German government has set course for Gibraltar and is thus moving away from its originally planned location. Over the past few months, it has been waiting off the coast of Denmark to enter Stade. Nevertheless, there are initial signs that the two parties to the conflict are slowly moving closer together.
The differences between the federally owned Deutsche Energy Terminal (DET) GmbH and the project developer Hanseatic Energy Hub GmbH (HEH) are about the construction of the superstructure. This jetty ensures that the cryogenic liquefied natural gas regasified from the ship can be transferred to land and distributed to the gas grids there. HEH presumes that the superstructure could go into operation by the start of the heating season, as a spokeswoman confirmed to heise online. This was also the result of an independent test report. This had previously been confirmed by the responsible approval authorities.
First signs of rapprochement
The DET, on the other hand, takes a different view of the situation and has not yet considered the facilities to be operational. However, the fact that the inspection has now revealed that further work still needs to be done is viewed positively by the DET, as a spokesperson told heise online: "We welcome the fact that HEH has apparently also determined that the technical work on the superstructure facilities and the documentation to be handed over for the safe operation of the superstructure facilities in compliance with German and international safety standards are still outstanding. In principle, we believe that the plant could be put into operation once the outstanding issues named by Uniper have been resolved."
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Regarding the whereabouts of the special ship, DET explained that it is currently "intensively" examining a sub-charter. According to reports, the ship would generate considerable costs even without active use – subchartering would therefore reduce the costs for the federal government. However, a possible sub-chartering should not be harming the terminal in Stade, the DET assures: "The examination also considers that the sub-chartering must not impair the possibilities for a timely commissioning of the site, which are also currently being examined. The sub-chartering should therefore have no influence on the commissioning of Stade."
Special ships chartered by the federal government
Alongside two LNG terminals in Wilhelmshaven and one in BrunsbĂĽttel, Stade is the fourth in Germany to be operated by a ship chartered by the federal government. These LNG terminals were hastily set up when the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine began and Russian gas supplies to Western Europe were restricted.
(mki)
