Gate LNG Reports Record Sendout
The Gate LNG terminal in Rotterdam, Netherlands said December 3 that last month's throughput was a record.
During the month of November, customers of Gate LNG nominated a record monthly quantity of 698,927,966 m3 of regasified LNG into the grid of the Netherlands' gas transmission system GTS, the operator said, adding that it equaled 76% of the booked monthly capacity.
The nominations figure equates to roughly 23.3mn m3/d, or 8.5bn m3/yr – which equals 70.8% of Gate's current maximum 12bn m3/yr regasification capacity
Gate said it is testing market interest to increase its sendout capacity by up to 2bn m3/yr by installing additional equipment – to 14bn m3/yr. The terminal is operated by a 50-50% joint venture of Dutch state gas infrastructure company Gasunie, which owns GTS, and worldwide oil terminals operator Vopak.
The record throughput is believed to reflect concerns over the mandatory ramp-down of the giant Dutch Groningen gasfield; this week the government said it would be ramped down more quickly after 2022. However more gas was stored across Europe this weekend than at the same time in 2017. EU-wide gas storage facilities as at December 2 2018 held 866.05 TWh of gas (80.54bn m3) so were 81.11%-full - that compares with year-earlier levels of 844.51 TWh-gas and 79.3%.
(Banner photo shows the Gate terminal from the air, courtesy of Gate LNG)