Athens Tugboats slowly tow the “Cheikh El Mokrani” to the pier. The men in the command center follow the berthing maneuver of the 220 meter long tanker with high voltage on their screens. The ship has 74,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas on board – enough to power 25,000 homes for a year. Docking is precision work. When the tanker is firmly moored and the connection to shore is established, the gas from the ship’s tanks begins to flow through four large pipes into the storage facilities.
Revithoussa, a 18-hectare rocky island west of Athens, was uninhabited until the 1980s. But now the people of Greece owe it to Revithoussa if their lights don’t go out this winter.
The island is now home to the country’s only LNG terminal to date. But the plant is much more: It has become a great hope for many European countries in the energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war – whether for the neighboring countries Bulgaria and Romania or the Ukraine.
Private investors are pushing the expansion
The Greek network operator Desfa is already expanding capacities in Revithoussa. Private investors are also planning further liquid gas terminals. In this way, Greece intends to become the hub for the gas supply of south-eastern Europe.
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LNG, liquefied natural gas, is created when natural gas is cooled down to a temperature of minus 162 degrees Celsius. It is liquefied and compressed to a six hundredth of its volume. This is how it can be transported, in special LNG tankers as well as with tank trucks.
>> Also read here: How Europe redirects its gas flows – and becomes independent of Russia
Gas producers and consumers will thus become independent of pipelines. LNG has made gas trading more flexible and a global business. The first commercial plant for the liquefaction of natural gas was built in the USA in 1940, and the first LNG tanker entered service in 1964.
Both private investors and the government have big plans for the liquid gas terminal.
The plans for the Revithoussa terminal go back 35 years. In 1987 the government at the time approved the project. Twelve years later, in February 2000, the first tanker docked. He brought liquefied natural gas from Algeria. Since then, the facilities on Revithoussa have been continuously expanded.
Today there are three large concrete tanks on the rocky island in which the liquefied natural gas is stored. A dense tangle of pipes runs across the island. Before the LNG can be fed into the grid, it must be returned to its gaseous state. The process is relatively simple: the LNG flows through a heat exchanger heated with seawater.
In the early years there wasn’t much going on at Revithoussa. In 2015, just twelve tankers docked here, one per month. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed everything here too. Since Russia has cut back supplies to many countries and Europe has been trying to break away from the supplier Gazprom, Revithoussa has been very busy.
In the first nine months of 2022, 60 gas tankers have already docked in Revithoussa, compared to 25 in the same period last year. “This year we will set a new record with more than 80 incoming LNG shipments,” says Fernando Calligas, spokesman for Greek gas company Desfa, which operates the facility.
The largest supplier is the USA
The Italian-Spanish-Belgian-Greek consortium Senfluga holds 66 percent of Desfa, while the Greek state holds 34 percent. “Between the beginning of January and the end of September we unloaded 60 LNG tankers at Revithoussa, compared to 25 in the same period last year,” says Calligas.
Revithoussa is helping Greece break away from Russian gas. In 2021, the country got 40 percent of its gas imports through Gazprom pipelines. This year it is expected to be less than 20 percent, says Maria Rita Galli, Desfa’s CEO. The LNG terminal is becoming all the more important. In the first nine months of this year, Revithoussa accounted for 43 percent of Greek gas imports.
The “interconnector” between Greece and Bulgaria has started operations – other pipeline projects are still in the planning phase.
(Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images)
The largest supplier is the USA, followed by Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt, Oman and Indonesia. “The terminal plays a key role in Greece’s energy supply,” says Desfa spokesman Calligas. “It allows for diversification of gas supply, provides operational flexibility in our transmission network and helps us meet peak demand in gas consumption.”
>> Also read here: Greece wants to develop billions of cubic meters of gas off the coast
But neighboring countries also look to Revithoussa. Thanks to the terminal, Greece has now become an important gas transhipment point. Exports almost quadrupled between January and September compared to the same period last year, from 5.4 terawatt hours (TWh) to 20.4 TWh.
“Revithoussa has played an even more important role in south-eastern Europe, especially since the outbreak of war in Ukraine,” says Desfa spokeswoman Natasha Chatziantoniou. “Greece meets the energy needs of Southeast and Central Europe to a large extent via Revithoussa,” says Chatziantoniou.
Especially for Bulgaria, Revithoussa is something of a life raft. In April, Gazprom shut off the country’s gas supply because the government in Sofia refused to pay for supplies in rubles. Since then, Bulgaria has made provisions for pipelines from the Greek network. Much of the gas comes from Revithoussa. “Gas exports to Bulgaria have more than tripled this year compared to 2021,” says Desfa spokeswoman Chatziantoniou.
A new pier is under construction, floating terminals are being built
Since October, Bulgaria has been connected to the Greek grid even more efficiently via a new pipeline, the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB). The new pipeline is designed in such a way that it can also supply gas to other Balkan countries that used to be dependent on Russia, such as Romania and Serbia, via Bulgaria. The international demand for delivery slots in Revithoussa is correspondingly high. The slots for 2023 have already been taken. Moldova and the Ukraine have also already requested delivery items.
The Greek Prime Minister is expanding his country’s energy infrastructure.
(Photo: dpa)
In order to cope with the increasing demand, the terminal operator Desfa has now increased the storage capacities in Revithoussa in the record time of just a few months. The LNG tanker “Gaslog Athens” has been anchored 700 meters off the island since the summer. It serves as a floating gas storage unit (Floating Storage Unit, FSU). This increases the storage capacity in Revithoussa from 225,000 to 370,000 cubic meters of LNG. A truck terminal was also completed on the island a few weeks ago. This means that liquefied natural gas can also be transported by tanker to industrial customers who are not connected to the Greek natural gas network.
LNG is also becoming increasingly important as a fuel for shipping. Desfa is therefore planning to build a new pier on Revithoussa, where small tankers with a capacity of 1,000 to 30,000 cubic meters can be loaded. In the future, ferries and freighters, but also cruise ships such as the “Aida Nova” or the “MSC World Europa” can also be refueled with the less environmentally harmful LNG in Greek ports.
>> Also read here: Greece stops privatization of important port
But Revithoussa is already working at the capacity limit. Greece is therefore pushing the construction of further floating LNG terminals. The Greek-Bulgarian consortium Gastrade is planning two of these terminals near Alexandroupoli in northern Greece, which will primarily supply the Balkan countries, but also the Ukraine. The first unit could be connected to the grid at the end of 2023.
The refinery group Motor Oil, which is controlled by the Greek shipowning family Vardinogiannis, wants to start building another terminal near Corinth at the end of this year. It could be operational in early 2024. Two more are planned in the port cities of Thessaloniki and Volos.
When the new terminals are in operation, Greece will have an LNG handling capacity of 25 billion cubic meters. That would be four times the current personal requirement. This means that the country could mathematically increase its natural gas exports more than sixfold.
The prerequisite for this, however, is the rapid expansion of the pipeline network in south-eastern Europe. So far, only a few lines, such as the new interconnector between Greece and Bulgaria, have been designed for transporting gas from south to north.
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