The Spanish group is one of the world’s leading companies in the operation of LNG terminals.
(Photo: AP)
Berlin The LNG terminal planned in Stade, Lower Saxony, will have a prominent co-owner in Enagás. The Spanish company is one of the world’s largest operators of LNG terminals and the second largest gas network operator in Europe. Enagás CEO Arturo Gonzalo told Handelsblatt that the project in Stade, which operates as the “Hanseatic Energy Hub” (HEH), fits in with the strategy of “contributing to securing the energy supply and driving the process of decarbonization in Spain and Europe”. .
As a co-shareholder and industrial partner, Enagás will contribute its experience in developing a hydrogen-ready infrastructure that will be of crucial importance for Germany. Although LNG terminals are initially required for natural gas imports, they should later be able to process hydrogen.
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Germany is working flat out to set up an import structure for liquefied natural gas (LNG). With most of Russia’s natural gas pipeline deliveries gone, the country’s lack of its own LNG import infrastructure proved to be a major weakness last year. Other countries, including Spain, have had LNG terminals for years.
Driven by the energy crisis following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the German government took the initiative to procure floating LNG terminals, so-called Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRU). The FSRU can be obtained at short notice, but are considered provisional. It is therefore planned to replace the FSRU with stationary systems. In addition to Stade, stationary LNG terminals are planned in Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel
Completion planned for 2027
The project in Stade should be completed in 2027. According to the operators, 80 percent of the capacities are booked for the long term. In addition to Enagás, shareholders are now the private equity company Partners Group, the chemical group Dow and the Buss Group as founding shareholders. Buss is a Hamburg-based logistics and energy company. The Belgian gas network operator Fluxys has left. The investment volume is estimated at one billion euros.
The federal government has designed the approval conditions for the LNG terminals in such a way that they must later be suitable for green hydrogen and other CO2-neutral alternatives to natural gas. One sees oneself prepared for this in Stade. “As an investor, there is no question for me that HEH must be planned to be flexible for the future,” said Johann Killinger, Managing Director and co-shareholder of Hanseatic Energy Hub.
HEH relies on ammonia for this. Ammonia is a hydrogen derivative, i.e. a derivative of the starting product hydrogen. Hydrogen that has been converted to ammonia is easier to transport than pure hydrogen.
Enagás plays an active role in building a European hydrogen infrastructure. Enagás CEO Gonzalo said the development of a European hydrogen backbone is crucial to the transition towards greater European energy autonomy. At the end of last year, the company, together with the operators of the long-distance gas pipelines in Portugal and France, registered a hydrogen corridor project called “H2Med” as a European project of common interest with the EU Commission.
Spain controls a third of Europe’s LNG capacity
Industry observers see the fact that Enagás is now entering Stade as a strategic step. Spain was able to use last year’s energy supply crisis to strengthen its role as a gas hub. The country has 30 percent of Europe’s regasification plants. Regasification plants are needed to convert LNG that arrives by ship back to the gaseous state so that it can be transported further overland through pipelines. Spain increased exports via existing cross-border gas pipelines by 18 percent last year. This helped to avoid supply bottlenecks within the EU.
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