LNG player Woodside said it had delivered an LNG cargo from its North West Shelf project in Australia to German energy firm Uniper via the Dutch Gate terminal in Rotterdam.
The 2019-built 174,000-cbm, Woodside Rees Withers, owned by Greece’s Maran Gas and chartered by Woodside, deliver the cargo of about 75,000 tonnes of LNG or 100 million cubic meters of natural gas to Gate on September 27.
Woodside said in a statement the shipment would contribute to natural gas supply in Northwest and Central Europe.
The company’s executive VP marketing and trading, Mark Abbotsford, said in the statement that the company was “pleased to have concluded the trade at a time when Europe is in urgent need o alternative sources of gas to replace Russian pipeline supplies.”
He said that events over the course of 2022 have shown that the world “cannot take reliable and affordable supplies of energy for granted, particularly as we strive to decarbonize.”
“At such times it is more important than ever that buyers and sellers work together to flexibly respond to market dynamics. Our relationship with Uniper is an example of such cooperation,” Abbotsford said.
Additional LNG sources for Europe
Uniper’s director LNG Andreas Gemballa said that the firm continues to work on “securing the much needed gas supply into Europe from reliable sources like Australia and thus helping to strengthen security of supply during the ongoing crisis triggered by the Russian war.”
“In addition to bringing online floating storage and regasification units in Germany, we are contracting LNG from diversified sources into existing and new regasification capacity in Europe,” Gemballa said.
Earlier this year, Uniper booked additional regasification capacities at the Gate terminal, owned by Gasunie and Vopek, which is increasing its capacity as well due to high demand.
Uniper also signed a deal with Woodside for the supply of LNG to Germany and Europe.
Germany currently has no regasification facilities but it should start importing LNG later this year or in the beginning of the next via the Lubmin FSRU terminal owned by private firm Deutsche Regas, Uniper-led Wilhelmshaven LNG terminal, and RWE’s Elbhafen LNG terminal in Brunsbuettel.
Deutsche ReGas, the developer of the LNG import terminal in the port of Lubmin, recently said that Germany’s first FSRU arrived in the Mukran Port on the island of Ruegen.
Also, the country’s first LNG jetty is ready in Wilhelmshaven, ahead of the arrival of Hoegh LNG’s 2018-built 170,000-cbm, FSRU Esperanza, in December.
Germany backed the charters of five FSRUs, two from Hoegh LNG, two from Dynagas, as well as one from Excelerate Energy.