Finland's 1st LNG Terminal Receives Cargo

The first cargo of LNG arrived at Gasum subsidiary Skangas’s LNG terminal in Pori, western Finland, on July 10 aboard Coral Energy from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Skangas said commissioning of its new terminal – the first in Finland – will be completed in August. Commercial deliveries to customers will begin in September. LNG will help diversify the Finnish energy market as it will enable deliveries to industrial operators not on the gas distribution system, as well as for use in marine bunkering and by trucks, the company added.

Total investment in the Pori terminal was €81mn, of which €23mn were granted by the government, and it was built on schedule. Skangas said customers for its LNG will include chemicals plants run by Huntsman and Norilsk Nickel at Pori, and the local Porin Prosessivoima power plant.

Aerial view of the new Pori LNG terminal, with the ship Coral Energy berthed (Photo credit: Gasum)

“We’re strengthening our position as the leading LNG player in the Nordic countries,” said Gasum CEO and Skangas chair Johanna Lamminen. Owned 51% by Finnish gas marketer Gasum and 49% by Norwegian utility Lyse, Skangas in 2015 supplied 376,700 metric tons of LNG (0.5bn m³ gas) in Finland, Sweden and Norway, owns a liquefaction plant and terminal at Risavika in Norway, LNG terminals in Ora in Norway and Lysekil in Sweden, and now the Pori terminal opening next month.

Construction of its second Finnish LNG terminal, the €100mn Tornio Manga LNG joint project, is on schedule for opening at the port of Tornio in 2018. Tornio is in northwest Finland, near the Swedish border at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia. Pori is on the Gulf of Bothnia but much further south.

Mark Smedley