June 01, 2020 [Kallanish Energy] – German utility company Uniper signed on Tuesday a contract with Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) for the construction and chartering of a floating LNG terminal in Germany.

 
The Wilhemshaven imports terminal, on the North Sea, consists of a Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) with storage capacity of 263,000 cubic meters.

The FSRU will be built by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering Co and chartered for 20 years, Kallanish Energy reports.

Uniper, through its 100% subsidiary LNG Terminal Wilhelmshaven (LTW) will operate the terminal in Germany’s only deep-sea port. Regasified gas will be pumped from the FSRU along a short connecting pipeline to the port facilities and fed into the German gas transmission network.

The agreement with MOL is “an important milestone,” said Uniper’s Chief Operating Officer David Bryson. “The LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven is a long-term project based on the prediction that demand for imported natural gas on the German and European energy markets will increase significantly over the coming years,” he added.

Uniper is pushing ahead with the project even though it recognizes more LNG terminals are being built in Europe in recent years. It notes that the “significant decline” in domestic gas production makes further expansion “a sensible and necessary course of action for the gas industry.”

The company plans to hold a tender in the summer to check on customer interest. Once the project gets the necessary approvals, the final investment decision (FID) will be taken “subject to economic viability.”

The FSRU has a unique tailored design to meet local and environment requirements for the German market. The companies didn’t provide more details on the vessel such as import and regas capacity, or timeframe for construction.

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