Edison Marks 500th RasGas Term Cargo
Edison, the Italian subsidiary of French power giant EDF, said July 6 that it has received the 500th LNG cargo under its long-term contract with RasGas. The Al Areesh delivered the cargo to the Adriatic LNG terminal in the northern Adriatic, offshore Venice in Italy, July 1.
The Qatari exporter signed a contract in 2003 to supply 4.6mn metric tons (or 6.4bn m³ gas)/year to Edison; shipments began in 2009.
CEO Hamad Mubarak Al Muhannadi said: “This is a milestone delivery that underlines RasGas’ continued commitment to the safe and reliable supply of LNG to all of its customers worldwide.” Edison CEO Marc Benayoun said it provided "further evidence of the excellent relationship" between both firms.
The relationship was less rosy earlier this decade: Edison secured payment of €450mn ($513mn) from RasGas in 2012 after winning an arbitration ruling request in 2011 over the pricing of the contract; RasGas was obliged to accept more market-proximate prices rather than pure oil-indexation.
Relations are better now though. Indeed Edison's parent EDF has 'flexible' long-term contracts with RasGas too: for up to 2mn mt/yr for Dunkirk and up to 3.5mn mt/yr to EDF Trading for Zeebrugge. Benayoun is also EDF's vice president for gas as well as Edison CEO.
Moody's this week downgraded its credit rating outlook for Qatari entities, including the RasGas (II) venture that supplies Edison, to negative.
Adriatic LNG used by other importers too
The Adriatic LNG facility received its 500th cargo in February 2017, also a RasGas delivery most likely to Edison. However because 20% of the offshore terminal's capacity was opened up by the Italian regulator to companies other than Edison, the facility since 2009 has received cargoes from other origins too including Egypt, Trinidad, Equatorial Guinea and Norway.
This June the 5.8mn mt (8bn m3)/yr gravity-base terminal offshore Rovigo on the Veneto coast of Italy – opened in 2009 – received its first ever shipment from Nigeria, believed to have been for BP, after adaptations were made at the terminal to enable off-spec Nigerian LNG to be imported there; it was Adriatic LNG's 524th arrival.
It is the most actively used of Italy's three LNG import terminals and most of its throughput originates in Qatar.
Mark Smedley