Gas infrastructure company Gasunie and Groningen Seaports are to research the possibilities of creating infrastructures in the Ems Harbour in the north of Groningen for the supply of LNG by ship, including the unloading and gaseous injection in the gas transport network. The parties have signed an agreement to that effect. With an LNG facility in the Ems Harbour, the possibilities to import natural gas will expand, as the supply of gas from the Groningen-field is further reduced. In collaboration with market parties, Gasunie will survey which technical, logistical and commercial concepts would be suitable. Groningen Seaports will survey location related matters in the Ems Harbour.

LNG can be supplied by ship from anywhere in the world, for example the Middle East, various parts of Africa, Norway, the United States and Australia. The Netherlands have an LNG facility already, at the Rotterdam Gate Terminal. Additional initiatives such as in the Ems Harbour would result in a larger diversity in sources and supply routes for energy supply in North-West Europe. This is important in the light of the production issues in Groningen and demand and supply developments in Europe.

Strategic location Ems Harbour – Groningen Seaports

Groningen is not only a gas production area, it is also the province where large quantities of gas enter the country from Norway, Germany and Russia via international pipelines. Using nitrogen, high-calorific gas from other countries and other production regions in the Netherlands can be made suitable for use by Dutch households, which configured to the use of low-calorific gas from Groningen. Nitrogen is already being added, and an extra production capacity is being planned. This makes LNG also suitable as a ‘gas for home use’ in the Netherlands. It can help make up for the shortfall as a result of the reduced gas supply from the Groningen field.

In the vicinity of the Ems Harbour, sufficient gas transport capacity is available for the national and international transport of natural gas. This makes the Ems Harbour a very suitable location for the supply of LNG. Because of the good connection to the Gasunie gas transport system in the north of the country, the Ems Harbour can help expand the LNG supply to the Netherlands and the north-west of Europe in an efficient way. In this respect it can complement the existing Rotterdam Gate Terminal of Gasunie and Vopak. The Ems Harbour is extremely suitable for LNG activities. It provides sufficient space and the ports harbour basins are excellently connected to to the open sea.

The LNG market is growing

As opposed to gas supplied by pipeline, LNG is traded on a global market. More and more LNG is becoming available, as new production facilities will be put into service in the coming years, in e.g. the United States, Australia and Qatar. It is expected that this will lead to lower prices for LNG, which means LNG will increasingly be able to compete with natural gas transported by pipelines. This effect is already apparent in Europe. In addition, the European Commission wants to promote LNG in Europe. Not only as a cleaner fuel for transport by road and water, but also because they feel LNG is important for Europe’s energy independence. By increasing the number of options, the buying power of energy users is strengthened.

For this reason, market parties in Europe feel that LNG has an interesting future. Gasunie always bases the development of infrastructure on the needs of the market and can thus ensure a solid investment base. Market research is an important part of the feasibility study.

About Gasunie

Gasunie (N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie) is a European gas infrastructure company. Gasunie’s network ranks among the largest high pressure gas pipeline grids in Europe, consisting of over
15,000 kilometers of pipeline in the Netherlands and northern Germany, dozens of installations and approximately 1,300 gas receiving stations. The annual gas throughput totals approximately 125 billion cubic meters. Gasunie offers transport services via its subsidiaries Gasunie Transport Services B.V. (GTS) in the Netherlands and Gasunie Deutschland in Germany. With its cross-border gas infrastructure and its services Gasunie facilitates TTF, which has developed into a leading and strongly growing European gas trading hub. The company also offers other services in the gas infrastructure field, including gas storage and LNG.