Polish LNG Terminal Expansion 'Complete by 2021'
Polish gas grid operator Gaz-System said this week it has recommended to subsidiary Polskie LNG that it expand its Swinoujscie LNG import terminal on Poland’s Baltic coast; the announcement was made September 19, followed by a release in English two days later.
The expansion will involve building an additional loading/unloading berth for vessels. Construction of this second jetty, which will be co-funded by the EU, should be completed by 2021. Once the work is over, the terminal’s regasification capacity will increase by half from 5bn m3/yr now to 7.5bn m3/yr.
The expansion will also include a loading berth for LNG bunker vessels. It will enable un/loading of small-scale LNG carriers, transshipments, loading of bunker vessels, and LNG bunkering operations. This fits in with the Polish maritime ministry’s objective of making the Oder waterway fully navigable in the coming years, and accessible for LNG-fueled barges.
Gaz-System said the decision on the Swinoujscie expansion was taken based on the results of a feasibility study that it accepted about a month ago. That followed a decision in principle to expand the terminal to 7.5bn m3/yr in April. However state-owned Gaz-System has not responded to a NGW query about whether this represents a final investment decision and how much investment is required.
So far not much more than 2bn m³ of Qatari, US and Norwegian gas (as LNG) have been imported at Swinoujscie by incumbent PGNiG since mid-2016.
Gaz-System is embarking on the planned addition of over 2,000 km of north-south transmission pipelines to its Polish network over the next decade, the first 14km of which opened last week. The investment is aimed at enabling more LNG to be regasified and flow into central Europe, thus reducing the region's dependency on Russian gas. On top of this, Gaz-System also has contingency plans for a floating LNG import terminal near Gdansk.
Not everyone is enthused: former RWE executive Wolfgang Peters, who took Gazprom to arbitration in 2012-13 and won, accused Poland's Gaz-System in May of building more and more expensive pipelines instead of "embracing the market" by opening up to flows from Germany’s Gaspool hub.
But the EU approves
The European Commission though said September 21 that a €79mn grant will be paid from its European Regional Development Fund to cover part of the construction costs of the 130km-long Zdzieszowice - Wroclaw pipeline in southwest Poland, part of the North-South Corridor programme backed by Gaz-System and cited as a priority in the 2017 Ten Year Statement by European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (Entsog).
EU commissioner for climate action and energy Miguel Arias Canete said: "Well-connected energy infrastructure is essential to achieving the Energy Union. This EU support will help fill existing gaps in energy infrastructure, putting us on the path to a truly connected European energy market." The North-South Corridor was defined as a project of common interest for trans-European energy infrastructure.
Mark Smedley