Under the regulated access regime, El Musel will only offer minimal regasification service for the proper management of the terminal, as well as the truck loading service
El Musel LNG Terminal receives its first commercial ship. (Credit: Enagás S.A.)
The liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal of El Musel, in Gijón, received Endesa’s first vessel following the final technical tests required before the plant’s commercial commissioning, the 180,000 m3 capacity ‘Gaslog Warsaw’.
On 31 July, following the successful completion of the capacity allocation procedure (Open Season) carried out by Enagás, Endesa began operations as the company awarded the contract for the terminal’s logistics services. This procedure attracted great interest from shippers, who submitted 13 bids in the binding phase.
The logistics services offered for this infrastructure are LNG unloading, storage and loading operations. Under the regulated access regime, El Musel will only offer minimal regasification service for the proper management of the terminal, as well as the truck loading service.
In July, the terminal received two ships as a necessary technical precursor to the commercial commissioning of the terminal: the ‘Cool Racer’ with a capacity of 174,000 m3 and the ‘Dorado LNG’ with the same capacity.
The commissioning of El Musel is a milestone for the start of commercial operations of the terminal, which is part of the Government’s More Energy Security Plan, and will strengthen the security of energy supply in Europe.
For Endesa, the allocation of the logistics services offered by this infrastructure is an important milestone. El Musel will offer Endesa flexibility at a time when European terminals are overloaded. Furthermore, the LNG tanks provide storage capacity and the exclusive use of the terminal opens up new business opportunities, all of which will contribute to strengthening Europe’s energy security.
In addition, Endesa Energía will provide the supply necessary for the optimal operation of the terminal, as well as truck loading and injection into the transmission network.
The Gijón terminal could contribute up to 8 bcm (billion cubic metres) of LNG capacity per year to Europe’s security of energy supply. It will allow the berthing of vessels of between 50,000 and 266,000 m³, has two tanks of 150,000 m³ of LNG storage capacity, two truck loading bays with a capacity to load a maximum of 9 GWh/d and a maximum emission capacity of 800,000 Nm³/h.
On 28 February, Enagás and Reganosa signed an agreement whereby Enagás acquired Reganosa’s 130 km gas pipeline network and Reganosa 25% of the El Musel Terminal. Once this transaction is completed, which is expected to be in the second half of the year, the composition of the shareholders of the El Musel Plant will be 75% Enagás and 25% Reganosa. This will make it possible to take advantage of synergies and work together on the services offered by the terminal and on new possibilities for collaboration to strengthen security of supply and advance the decarbonisation targets of Spain and Europe.
Source: Company Press Release