Finland’s Gasgrid and Fortum said that the country’s first FSRU-based LNG import facility would be located in the port of Inkoo.
In that regard, the two firms signed a letter of intent on placing the chartered FSRU Exemplar at Fortum’s Inkoo port, according to a joint statement on Thursday.
To remind, Excelerate Energy’s 150,900-cbm Exemplar will serve Finland, Estonia and other Baltic states under a 10-year charter deal Gasgrid signed with the US LNG firm last month.
The FSRU can supply more than 5 billion cubic meters per year of regasification capacity and should arrive in Europe this winter.
Optimal deepwater port
Located on the Southern coast of Finland, Inkoo provides an optimal deepwater port at close proximity to the pipelines distributing the gas mainly to industrial end-users in the Baltic region, the statement said.
The port owned by Fortum is situated about 1.5 km from the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline that unites the Finnish and Baltic countries’ gas markets.
This LNG development enables independence from Russian pipeline gas, the duo said. Gazprom cut supplies to Finland’s Gasum in May.
Gasgrid and Fortum say the vessel’s capacity is sufficient for the gas needs of both Finland and Estonia.
Exemplar’s has a capacity of 140 GWh/day or more than 40 TWh per year, exceeding Finland’s annual natural gas demand, which has historically been approximately 25 TWh per year, the statement said.
Getting the port ready
The partners will now work to prepare the port located about 60 kilometers west of Helsinki before the FSRU arrives. Fortum’s Inkoo port has a ready-to-use pier and has undergone the necessary environmental impact assessments already in 2014 – 2015.
In addition to Inkoo, Gasgrid and the Estonian electricity and gas transmission system operator Elering continue to develop a potential site in Estonia, as originally planned, the statement said.
“The aim of this is to mitigate potential project risks and increase the probability that one of the sites is ready as early as possible for the next winter,” it said.
Elering recently said that construction had started on a pipeline which would link the planned FSRU-based terminal in Paldiski, Estonia, to the grid.
Estonian energy company Alexela and compatriot investment firm Infortar, the developers of the Paldiski LNG facility, also said that Jan de Nul’s vessel had completed dredging of the seabed at the terminal.