Adriatic LNG Receives 600th Cargo
Adriatic LNG, the import terminal offshore northeast Italy, has received its 600th cargo. Greek-flagged LNG tanker al Jassasiya left Qatar on May 22 and arrived June 6 with 140,000 m3 LNG on board, equivalent to almost 85mn m3 gas.
Adriatic LNG said June 7 its facility received 30 carriers in just the first five months of 2018, inputting 2.6bn m3 to Italy’s national gas grid during that period, equivalent to an 80% capacity utilisation rate – about four times higher than the European average for regas terminals.
Since its opening in October 2009, the 8bn m3 (5.8mn mt) per year facility, off Venice, has received LNG from Qatar, Egypt, Trinidad, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Nigeria and the US. Four fifths of its capacity (so 4.64mn mt/yr) is reserved for the RasGas long-term contract for delivery to Italy's Edison, part of the French EDF group; the rest is made available to other shippers.
Adriatic LNG is 70.7%-owned by ExxonMobil, Qatar Petroleum 22% and Italian gas grid owner Snam 7.3%.
Italy has two other LNG import terminals onshore at Panigaglia and nearshore Livorno, in northwest Italy which both have much lower utilisation rates.