DET’s second Wilhelmshaven FSRU gets commissioning LNG cargo

“We can confirm that Energy Endurance has made the first delivery to the FSRU Excelsior,” a DET spokesman told LNG Prime via email.

The spokesman did not provide further details.

According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, the 2024-built 174,000-cbm Energy Endurance, owned by Alpha Gas, delivered the shipment from Venture Global LNG’s Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana.

On Monday morning, the vessel was in the North Atlantic Ocean and heading to the US Gulf.

Last month, Excelerate’s 138,000-cbm FSRU Excelsior docked at a new jetty, two kilometers south of the already operational Wilhelmshaven 1 terminal, to start serving the second FSRU-based terminal.

The 277-meter-long FSRU is moored at the island jetty, completed last year, and located about 1.5 km from the shore.

Before arriving in Germany, the vessel spent a long time in Navantia’s yard in El Ferrol, Spain, due to delays with the launch of the second Wilhelmshaven terminal.

DET’s second terminal in Wilhelmshaven will have a capacity of about 4 bcm per year.

The company currently operates the Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven 1 FSRU-based terminals.

DET is also working on the Stade FSRU-based terminal.

The company recently terminated the contract related to the Stade FSRU-based facility with compatriot Hanseatic Energy Hub, the developer of the onshore LNG terminal in Stade.

Two and a half years

DET held a small press event later on Monday to mark the commissioning of its third FSRU-based terminal.

The company noted that the second LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven was connected to the grid in around two and a half years, including planning and approval.

Despite “major engineering challenges”, the project partners Engie and TES, on behalf of DET, completed the project in roughly half the time typically required for comparable large-scale LNG projects, the company said.

DET and the project partners were supported during construction by Gasfin, which
will take over terminal management on site in the future, it said.

In 2025, Excelsior will feed up to 1.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas into the German gas grid.

According to DET, this corresponds to the annual natural gas consumption for heating 1.5 million four-person households in multi-family homes.

In the two subsequent years, Excelsior’s regasification and grid feed-in capacity will then reach up to 4.6 billion cubic meters each, equivalent to the annual heating energy required by up to 3.7 million four-person households, the firm said.

(Updated with a statement by Deutsche Energy Terminal.)