Depa to Book Capacity in New Terminal

Greek gas supplier Depa said May 3 it has agreed to reserve capacity in the planned Alexandropoulis LNG import terminal in northern Greece.

Depa said its managing director Dimitris Tzortzis reached agreement the previous day in Athens with his counterpart from the terminal’s developer Gastrade, Konstantinos Spyropoulos, about future capacity reservation by Depa in the planned terminal. Depa said it also agreed to participate in the relevant market test that will be carried out in the coming months.  The bilateral agreement was reached during a May 2 meeting of Depa, Gastrade and Bulgarian state energy group BEH to discuss cooperation on the Alexandropoulis project.

In October 2017, Depa signed a cooperation agreement with Gastrade, allowing for Depa to become a Gastrade shareholder which Depa said May 3 is “expected to be completed soon.”  Monaco-based LNG shipowner GasLog, which is expected to provide the vessel (FSRU) for the Alexandroupoulis floating terminal, already took a 20% interest in Gastrade last year.

Greek energy minister Giorgos Stathakis met in Sofia last month, on April 18,Agree with his Bulgarian counterpart Temenuzhka Petkova. Depa said that she confirmed Bulgaria’s intention at that meeting to speed up negotiations for completion of its own participation in the project.

The target date for a final investment decision in the project has slipped a full year, with GasLog CEO Paul Wogan saying this February that FID for Alexandropoulis is now expected late 2018, which would make it challenging to open the terminal in 2020 as partners had originally envisaged.

Greece already has had a fully operative LNG import terminal for nearly two decades near Athens, at Revythoussa, which is now being expanded; it is owned and run by Greek gas grid operator Desfa.