Over 7 million m3 of liquefied natural gas regasified in Świnoujście LNG terminal
September has started industriously at Polskie LNG, the owner and operator of the President Lech Kaczyński’s LNG Terminal in Świnoujście. The company says it joined the Baltic Ports Organization, the terminal received the 40th delivery of LNG, moreover, lately the 3000th tank truck was loaded with liquefied natural gas. Traffic within the LNG Terminal is growing year by year, and as a result of the expansion programme planned for the coming years, not only the capacity of the installation will increase, but also new services will be provided to the regional gas market.
On Friday, 7th September, the 40th LNG carrier was unloaded at Polish LNG terminal in Świnoujście. The facility has been in operation for over two years since the first commissioning cargo unloaded on 11th December 2015, while commercial deliveries were inaugurated on 17th June 2016. Ever since then, the import of liquefied natural gas through Polskie LNG facility has been growing. In 2016, approximately 1.5 million m3 of LNG were delivered aboard 8 vessels to the LNG terminal. In the following year, there were already 14 cargoes unloaded nearly doubling the annual volume of imported natural gas (over 2.7 million m3 of LNG). Only until the beginning of September this year, as many as 16 vessels have called at the terminal in Świnoujście, and the total volume of gas regasified in the facility has already exceeded 7 million m3 (over 2.9 million m3 of LNG in 2018 by 07.09.2018). June 2018 hit the record in terms of calls at the terminal with 3 cargoes delivered on 1st, 11th and 25th June unloaded.
To date, liquefied natural gas has been imported to Poland from three directions: Qatar, the USA and Norway. The vessels that most frequently call at the terminal in Świnoujście are 315 m long Q-flex carrying 216 000 m3 LNG; so far, as many as 35 ships of this type were unloaded at the facility. Other vessels include methane carriers with the capacity of up to 140,000 m3. After the expansion of the terminal with the second jetty, the facility will also accommodate small and medium scale LNG carriers. The four-stage Expansion Program for the LNG Terminal in Świnoujście is scheduled for completion within 4-5 years' perspective. The Expansion Program will comprise the following projects: increasing the regasification capacity of the plant from 5 to 7.5 bcm, construction of a second jetty for smaller vessels, the third LNG process storage tank with the capacity of 180,000 m3, and the construction of a railway siding for trans-shipment of liquefied gas onto rail tankers and ISO containers.
- Polskie LNG consistently strives to increase the prominence of the Świnoujście terminal in the region of Northern Europe and CEE countries. Following the intensive Expansion Program in the coming years, we intend to provide new services related to the trans-shipment of liquefied gas over the Baltic Sea region, as well as to countries from our part of Europe that have no access to their own LNG import infrastructure, thus contributing to the development of natural gas market as fuel for maritime and inland shipping as well as rail and car transport. Year by year, the operations of the LNG Terminal in Świnoujście are gaining momentum, and owing to a team of great industry experts I have the opportunity to work with - the rank of our facility is systematically rising in the region, said Paweł Jakubowski, CEO of Polskie LNG.
The decision to launch new services by Polskie LNG was driven by the dynamic development of the LNG market, the allocation of 100% of terminal's regasification capacity, and the record-breaking performance in LNG tanker loading services. On 3rd September, the 3000th tanker truck was loaded at the terminal in Świnoujście. In 2017, that is the first full year of LNG truck loading service - Polskie LNG gained the leading position among all natural gas import terminals in Europe, including Fluxys LNG Terminal in Zeebrugge, Belgium which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year and which is often presented as an example of the most experienced and recognised facility of this type in the Old Continent. In total, the terminal crew in Świnoujście loaded 1,523 tanker trucks in 2017, that is 69 cisterns more than handled at Fluxys' facility. This year, approximately 950 tanker trucks have been loaded so far, however, with the substantial increase in natural gas demand observed in the autumn and in winter season, there is still a chance for Polskie LNG to break its last year's record.
