Finnish state-owned energy firm Gasum has started building a new liquefied biogas (bio-LNG) filling station in the municipality of Keminmaa in northern Finland.
According to a statement by Gasum, construction work will take around six months and the goal is to open the station to users by the end of this year.
When completed, the Keminmaa filling station will be the first gas filling station in Finnish Lapland, Gasum’s northernmost filling station, and the northernmost liquefied biogas filling station in Europe, the firm claims.
Gasum recently opened its second northernmost station in Lulea, Sweden.
The Keminmaa station will provide both liquefied and compressed biogas, thereby serving heavy-duty transport and passenger car drivers.
Also, the station is located in the new Rajakangas industrial park on the E8 Oulu-Tornio road in the immediate vicinity of the Rovaniemi junction.
Gasum said the station is ideally placed to serve traffic heading for Rovaniemi and Tornio as well traffic to Sweden.
The Keminmaa station has received funding from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility.
“Gasum aims to expand its filling station network even further northward and enable transport with biogas and gas motoring in Lapland,” Juho Kurra, head of business, traffic Finland at Gasum, said in the statement.
“The Keminmaa station will serve long-haul transport in the north and enable growing numbers of logistics providers to switch to biogas-powered transport,” Kurra said.
Biogas already now accounts for almost all the gas sold by Gasum as a transport fuel for all vehicle segments in Finland, the firm said.
Gasum’s strategic goal is to bring 7 TWh of renewable gas yearly to market by 2027, it added.