Finnish LNG Terminal Work Awarded
Finland's Wartsila said October 4 it has been awarded a turnkey contract to supply an LNG receiving terminal to be built in Hamina, Finland.
The contract was awarded by Hamina LNG, a joint venture of municipally-owned Hamina Energia and Estonian infrastructure group Alexela, which decided in June to build the €95mn ($107mn) project. Finland will pay 30% of the cost.
The LNG terminal is scheduled to be operational in August 2020, said Finnish turbine-maker and engineering group Wartsila. The scope of its contract includes civil works and infrastructure, a 30,000m3 LNG storage tank, regasification, bunkering and truck loading facilities. The port of Hamina will be Finland's first LNG terminal connected to the gas grid. Once operational, LNG will be trucked to other harbours.
Finland has two LNG receiving terminals already: Pori in western Finland opened summer 2016, while Tornio Manga in northern Finland was declared mechanically complete this summer but is due to enter commercial service in mid-2018. Wartsila has been turnkey contractor for Tornio Manga too. Scandinavian terminals tend to be small but cost less to build than those in the rest of Europe that regasify into large transmission networks.
Alexela, whose interests span energy infrastructure, metals and property in Russia, Estonia and elsewhere, has tried unsuccessfully to secure EU funding for its planned Paldiska LNG import terminal; there is no sign that the EU will relent over its funding refusal, arguing that existing LNG terminals in the Baltic republics need to be more rationally used in the region, rather than each country having its own 'national' and under-used terminal.
Mark Smedley