Spain’s Bilbao LNG terminal gets 1000th cargo

BBG is 50 percent owned by the Basque government via the Basque Energy Agency and 50 percent by Spanish LNG terminal operator Enagas.

According to a statement by BBG, the 2016-built 176,000-cbm, Rioja Knutsen, chartered by Naturgy, delivered the milestone shipment from the US on Monday.

The vessel is loaded with a cargo from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal.

Rioja Knutsen will remain at the LNG terminal for 24 hours to unload 164,000 cbm of LNG into the terminal’s tanks.

The Bilbao LNG terminal has three storage tanks each with a capacity of 150,000 cbm and a regasification capacity of 800,000 Nm3/h.

49 LNG carriers in 2024

In 2024, the Bilbao LNG terinal it received a total of 49 vessels that delivered 7.84 million cubic metres of LNG, equivalent to 3.4 million tonnes, BBG said.

In addition, BBG regasified a total of 50,887,4 GWh.

Last year, Spanish gas consumption decreased by 4.2 percent.

This decrease is mainly due to the reduction in demand for natural gas for electricity generation, which has decreased by 21.9 percent, although conventional demand has increased by 3.1 percent over the previous year.

As far as natural gas supplies are concerned, 62 percent were supplied by LNG.

BBG has increased its share as it has received 27.24 percent of the total LNG supplies that entered the Spanish gas system compared to 22 percent of the previous year.

It has also covered 200 percent of the demand for natural gas in the Basque Country and 16 percent of the demand for natural gas throughout the state, thus fulfilling its primary mission of guaranteeing the supply to the Basque Country and strengthening the Spanish gas system, BBG said.

The level of use of Bilbao LNG terminal’s regasification facilities has been the highest of all plants in the system, with 62.3 percent, according to BBG.