Poland’s LNG terminal operator Gaz-System said that its contractors have raised the roof on the third LNG storage tank at the import facility in Swinoujscie.
Gaz-System said in a statement on Thursday that the tank roof weighs over 1,000 tons and it was lifted to a height of some 40 meters using air pressure from fans.
The new 180,000-cbm tank is part of the expansion project that will considerably boost the capacity of the only LNG terminal in Poland.
Germany-based TGE Gas Engineering and a Polish unit of Austrian PORR Group are working on the project.
The firms said earlier this year that they were preparing to raise the roof on the third LNG tank at Gaz-System’s import facility.
Gaz-System previously said that the firms would build the expansion in two phases. The first phase which included boosting the terminal’s regasification capacity to 6.2 bcm per year was completed at the beginning of 2022.
The second phase includes the third tank and an additional jetty.
Once complete in 2023, the expanded terminal will have a total regasification capacity of about 8.3 bcm per year, according to Gaz-System.
Record number of LNG cargoes
Poland’s dominant gas firm and LNG importer, PGNiG, recently said it had received a record number of cargoes at the regasification facility in Swinoujscie, as part of efforts to strengthen the European country’s energy security.
The facility received six LNG cargoes in May, marking a monthly record for deliveries. The total volume of May deliveries reached some 450,000 tonnes of LNG or some 620 million cubic meters of natural gas after regasification, PGNiG said.
In May, PGNiG also imported its first cargo of LNG via the Klaipedos Nafta-operated FSRU-based facility in the port of Klaipeda, as part of efforts to diversify supplies to Poland.
The rise in LNG imports is PGNiG’s response to the “tense situation on the European gas market caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and restrictions on fuel supplies from the East,” the firm previously said.
To remind, Russia’s Gazprom previously had cut supplies to Poland via the Yamal pipeline.
PGNiG said the growth of LNG imports is possible due to the expansion of the facility in Swinoujscie, where the firm had booked a regasification capacity of 6.2 bcm per year since this year. This is some 1.2 bcm more than before.
Thanks to further investments, the capacity will increase to 8.3 bcm of gas per year in 2024 while PGNiG has booked all of these volumes as well.
Besides this facility, PGNiG also showed interest in Gaz-System’s planned FSRU-based LNG terminal in Gdansk Bay.