Germany opens a floating gas station in the North Sea port

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Germany has opened a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, marking a milestone in its quest for energy independence from Russia.

Olaf Schultz, chancellor, inaugurated the Høegh Esperanza Floating Storage and Gas Regasification Unit (FSRU), one of five units contracted by the German government to fill the energy gap formed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

“This is a very important contribution to our security… And a good day for Germany,” Schultz said in Wilhelmshaven.

The Esperanza, a specialized vessel nearly three football fields long, is carrying 170 million cubic meters of LNG, mostly originally from the United States – enough to supply 50,000 homes for a year. Over the coming weeks, it will be regasified and fed into Germany’s onshore pipeline network.

Moscow’s decision to drastically cut gas exports to Germany over the summer plunged Europe’s largest economy into its worst energy crisis since World War II. Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia accounted for more than half of Germany’s gas imports.

Berlin’s efforts to find an alternative have been hampered by its complete lack of infrastructure to import LNG and its almost complete reliance on pipelines such as Nord Stream 1 that brought gas directly from Russia. Since the beginning of the year the Schulz government has made a huge effort – and billions of euros in taxpayers’ money – to rectify this.

It has contracted five FSRUs, each with a capacity of 5 billion cubic meters per year of gas. It has also pushed through the construction of new permanent LNG import terminals, one of which will be built in Wilhelmshaven.

“Russian President Putin thought he could blackmail us by cutting gas supplies,” Schulz said. “He was wrong.”

The chancellor added that Germany will soon have an LNG import capacity of 30 billion cubic meters per year on its northern coast. “This is equivalent to more than half of the total volume of pipeline gas that flowed into Germany from Russia last year,” he said.

Wilhelmshaven FSRU’s infrastructure was built in 10 months – a record for a country where large energy projects tend to take years to complete.

“When we said that such a station should be built in Wilhelmshaven this year, people said that it would not be possible and would never work,” said Schultz. “vice versa.”

“This is the new pace at which Germany is leading infrastructure projects, and it should serve as a model – not only for this facility, but for many others as well,” he said.

Chancellor Olaf Schultz at the opening of the Hoeg Esperanza floating gas facility. It took just 10 months to complete the infrastructure. © AFP via Getty Images

Esperanza will be supplemented by a second FSRU, Høegh Gannet, which will go into operation at the nearby port of Brunsbüttel in January. A third, FSRU – Neptune – will open in Lubmin on the Baltic Sea coast later this month.

“This is a milestone for Germany to become energy independent,” Eric Neheim, CEO of Höegh LNG, which owns Esperanza, Gannet and Neptune, told the Financial Times.

Neheim said Hoegg Esperanza, Janet and Neptune will have a regasification capacity of 17.5 billion cubic meters per year, making a “significant contribution” to Germany’s energy supply. It’s about a third of the volume of gas – 50 billion cubic meters – that the country imported from Russia last year.

Nyheim said Höegh will deploy five FSRUs in Europe by next year – half of its fleet – while increasing its LNG import capacity.

Climate activists have said investments in new LNG infrastructure do not make sense when the EU seeks to decarbonize by 2050 and reduce its emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

“We are threatened by massive overcapacity and restrictive effects – although Germany’s gas consumption should drop significantly in the coming years,” said Sascha Müller-Kreiner, head of German Environmental Aid.

With Russian supplies down to near zero, Neheim said, there was little alternative to new import terminals.

“Last year, Europe imported 150 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia,” he said. “Now it should be replaced by LNG.”

The concern about overcapacity is misplaced, said Olaf Laess, economics minister for Lower Saxony, the state where Wilhelmshaven is located. He said, “Worry is not this winter.” “We have to watch the winter of 2023-4, which we will not get into the well-stocked storage we have this year.”

“This is why Germany needs the stations.”

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