Gorskaya LNG Aims at Baltic Bunkering

Privately-owned LNG Gorskaya is challenging other LNG terminals operating on the Baltic coast, with a funding boost March 9. The Russian company's LNG bunkering project, Aurora, has secured €19mn ($20.04mn)  from London-based Kinlan Communication to help finance its Parnu and Montu plants in Estonia.

LNG Gorskaya is looking to attract the same amount again through additional shares and convertible bonds. Proceeds will be used to finance LNG bunkering centers in Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Sweden and Finland.

The company plans a series of small-scale LNG terminals to deliver LNG to ships no more than 320 km from its LNG bunkering centres. Its own floating liquefaction unit will have the capacity to produce 1.3mn metric tons/year.

LNG Gorskaya CEO Kirill Lyats told Russian media that the company has already concluded contracts for LNG. “We will purchase some of the LNG on the market or through long-term supply contracts with other suppliers. We will have various LNG supply sources,” he said.

Asked to provide more details, Piotr Liamochkin, LNG Gorskaya spokesman, told NGW that the company was still in the design stage. “The floating regasified gas jetties are being sketched out and, soon, a clear-cut view of the infrastructure will be available,” he said.

He said the company was looking forward to launching an LNG depot by the end of next year, with the maiden voyage of a LNG bunkering vessel to follow soon afterwards.

A locally registered subsidiary of Gorskaya LNG signed in late January a letter of intent with the Estonian port of Parnu to establish an LNG depot in the harbour. It will include floating LNG storage with 5,500 m³ of space, an LNG bunkering vessel with a capacity of 1,300 m³, a jetty and other port installations. Aurora is also eyeing Lubeck in Germany and the Liepaja Oil terminal in Latvia as sites.

“The prospects of LNG as of a bunkering fuel are really great in the Baltic region. We have very clear and detailed plans to properly address the developments. We are happy to see competition in the market,” LNG Gorskaya told NGW.

Gorskaya LNG

(Credit: Gorskaya LNG)

Previously, Russia’s Kriogaz, a spinoff of Russia’s Gazprombank, a bank partly owned by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, announced plans to supply marine vessels and ferry lines with LNG.

Kriogaz has reportedly signed a LNG supply contract with Estonia’s ferry service operator Tallink and looks forward to inking similar contracts with customers in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and the Baltics. In addition, for the purpose, it plans to start in the near future a long ago planned 150,000 metric ton (mt) LNG regasification facility in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Linas Jegelevicius