Croatia is planning to slightly increase the capacity of its FSRU-based LNG import terminal on the northern Adriatic island of Krk, as European countries look to slash reliance on Russian gas.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told media in Brussels on Friday the plans include boosting the capacity from the current 2.6 billion cubic meters of gas to 2.9 bcm per year.
“We believe that we can achieve this with the existing infrastructure at our LNG terminal,” he said.
This is good news for neighbor Slovenia which does not have an LNG import facility and is planning to import Qatari LNG.
According to Plenkovic, Croatia would work with the European Commission to secure the necessary funding for the capacity increase of the Krk LNG terminal.
The EU already provided 101.4 million euros ($111.4 million) via the Connecting Europe Facility to the project which includes the 140,000-cbm FSRU, a jetty, as well as the connecting gas pipeline.
State-owned operator LNG Croatia recently said the FSRU had welcomed its 25th LNG cargo since the start of operations in January last year. Most of these cargoes, or 17 of them, came from the US.
Also, the LNG import terminal has received more than 3.5 million cubic meters of LNG since its launch.
MET, Hungary’s MFGK, but also Qatar’s PowerGlobe have booked almost all of the volumes at the Krk facility for the next two years.