Finland’s Gasgrid plans to start offering reloading services at the country’s first FSRU-based facility in the port of Inkoo to boost the terminal’s utilization rate.
Excelerate Energy’s 150,900-cbm FSRU Exemplar has a regasification capacity of more than 5 billion cubic meters per year and started supplying regasified LNG to the grid on December 29 as part of the commissioning phase.
Gasgrid said in January that that the FSRU-based facility, which connects to a 2.2 km long gas transmission pipeline, was ready to start commercial operations.
Earlier this month, the state-owned firm reduced the number of planned LNG import slots for the April-September period due to “limitation of transmission capacity in Balticconnector and expected market demand.”
Eesti Gas, a unit of Estonian investment firm Infortar, is the first customer and will bring in total seven shipments via Finland’s LNG facility in the port of Inkoo this year.
October 1
Gasgrid said in a statement issued on March 16 that the Finnish Energy Authority or Energiavirasto will carry out a consultation from March 16-30 to amend the terms and conditions submitted by Gasgrid’s unit and the operator of the terminal, Floating LNG Terminal Finland.
“The predictability of gas demand, price and availability has increased to such an extent that the terms of use no longer correspond to the market demand as was thought when the terms of use were established,” Gasgrid said.
With the changed circumstances, it has become clear that offering a reloading service would significantly improve the utilization rate of the FSRU-based LNG terminal, thereby increasing its financial operating conditions, it said.
“According to the feedback received from market participants, omitting the reloading service would exclude more users of the LNG terminal ship, which, on the other hand, would significantly reduce the potential use of the LNG terminal ship,” the firm said.
Gasgrid’s unit suggests that the changes to the terms of use would come into force from October 1, while the confirmation decision would be valid until the end October 1, 2024.
