Poland’s Orlen has received the 300th cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Swinoujscie terminal since the start of operations in 2016.
The 2021-built LNG carrier Prism Courage delivered the milestone shipment to the President Lech Kaczynski LNG terminal in Swinoujscie from the US, Orlen’s PGNiG said in a statement on Monday.
This LNG carrier owned by SK Shipping delivered about 70,000 tonnes of LNG from Cheniere’s Corpus Christi LNG terminal.
PGNiG has a long-term agreement with US LNG exporting giant Cheniere.
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, the 200th cargo arrived in December 2022, and the 250th shipment arrived in September last year.
Qatar and US
Poland’s LNG imports via the Swinoujscie terminal rose almost 6 percent in 2023 compared to the year before, boosted by shipments from the US.
The Swinoujscie LNG terminal received 62 cargoes or about 4.66 million tonnes of LNG in 2023.
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 2022. 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 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 143 LNG cargoes to the terminal, while 134 deliveries arrived from the US, according to PGNiG.
Other suppliers includes Norway, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, and Egypt.
These 300 cargoes total about 24 million tonnes of LNG, PGNiG said.