Deutsche ReGas said in a statement that the icebreakers Mellum and Bremen Fighter have broken up the layer of ice on the federal waterway to the 2009-built 145,000-cbm, FSRU Neptune, allowing Minerva Amorgos to deliver the shipment.
The 174,000-cbm LNG carrier has been waiting off Mukran for days to unload its Plaquemines LNG cargo due to icy conditions and the malfunction of the federally-owned icebreaker Neuwerk last Thursday in the Greifswalder Bodden.
The last LNG tanker to unload a shipment into the FSRU was the 174,000-cbm Maran Gas Nice.
Maran Gas Nice was recently accompanied by the icebreaker Neuwerk, which was still operational at the time.
With regasification now commencing, Deutche ReGas is once again feeding gas into the grid to supply 6.5 million households, the LNG terminal operator said.
“I thank the Waterways and Shipping Agency (WSA) for providing the Mellum as an additional resource to keep the critical energy infrastructure on Rugen accessible,” Ingo Wagner, CEO of Deutsche ReGas, said.
“Under weather conditions unparalleled in decades, the collaboration between the Deutsche ReGas operational team, the WSA, the Federal Network Agency, the Sassnitz Port Authority, the Wismar-Rostock-Stralsund Pilots’ Association, and Boluda, was both collaborative and professional,” he said.
Bringing back second FSRU
Deutsche ReGas recently said that its FSRU-based LNG import facility in Mukran regasified 12.9 TWh over the past three months.
The company claims this is the largest gas volume among all floating LNG terminals in Europe during the period.
Moreover, the company is offering up to two billion cubic meters per annum of additional long-term regasification capacity at its FSRU-based LNG terminal.
The LNG terminal operator is advancing its plans to expand its facility on the Baltic Sea to the nameplate capacity of 13.5 bcma under the BNetzA regulatory exemption.
In December, a spokesman for Deutsche ReGas told LNG Prime that the company was running a tender process to bring back a second floating storage and regasification unit at its LNG import facility in Mukran.
The Mukran LNG terminal currently consists of FSRU Neptune, after Deutsche ReGas terminated the charter contract for the 174,000-cbm FSRU Energos Power with the German government.
The FSRU Neptune is 50 percent owned by Hoegh Evi and sub-chartered by Deutsche ReGas from French energy giant TotalEnergies, who also holds capacity rights at the Mukran facility along with trader MET.
