Poland’s Orlen has received the 250th cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Swinoujscie terminal since the start of operations.
The 173,400-cbm LNG carrier Energy Endeavour delivered the milestone shipment to the President Lech Kaczynski LNG terminal in Swinoujscie from the US, Orlen’s PGNiG said in a social media post on Wednesday.
The 2021-built Energy Endeavour, owned by Greece’s Alpha Gas, will unload about 77,000 tonnes of LNG.
These volumes are part of a long-term agreement with US LNG exporting giant Cheniere Energy, PGNiG said.
Orlen completed in November 2022 its merger with Poland’s dominant gas firm, PGNiG, which is in charge for all of the LNG supplies coming to the Swinoujscie facility operated by Gaz-System.
The Swinoujscie LNG terminal received its first commercial cargo in June 2016. Prior to that it also received two commissioning LNG cargoes.
Orlen previously said that the 50th LNG cargo arrived at the facility in January 2019, the 100th delivery landed in July 2020, while the 200th cargo arrived in December last year.
Qatar and US
Poland’s LNG imports via the Swinoujscie terminal rose 57 percent in 2022 to 58 LNG carriers, boosted by shipments from the US.
The growth of LNG imports was possible due to the expansion of Gaz System’s facility in Swinoujscie, where PKN Orlen booked a regasification capacity of 6.2 bcm per year since last 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 and Orlen booked all of these volumes as well.
In addition, Orlen recently booked 6.1 bcm per year of regasification capacity at Gaz-System’s planned FSRU-based LNG import facility in Gdansk.
Qatar and the US are the leading suppliers of LNG to Poland as part of long-term contracts, while the US is the dominant supplier in the last two years.
Since 2016, Qatar supplied 126 LNG cargoes to the terminal, while 103 deliveries arrived from the US, according to PGNiG.
Other suppliers includes Norway, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, and Egypt.
These 250 cargoes total about 19.7 million tonnes of LNG, PGNiG said.