Galicia Plans to Develop Ferrol as LNG 'Hub'
Galicia’s regional government (or Xunta) is looking to stimulate €215mn of investment over the next three years to develop the Reganosa LNG terminal, which opened 2007, into a hub for the northwest Spanish region and wider market.
It sees the project of creating an LNG hub as a “strategic objective for the country” and, in its energy guidelines for 2018-2020, says it wants to spur the €215mn investment -- €54mn of public and €161mn private investment – to develop the hub as it believes the region is ideally placed in Europe to receive US LNG post-2020. It has already received US cargoes. And in January, Reganosa also received one of Yamal LNG's first cargoes, following a transshipment at Rotterdam's Gate terminal, all within a month of the Russian export venture's start-up.
Galicia's Xunta extols LNG as a clean bunkering fuel for which demand from ships is growing, something the hub would promote too. Reganosa is separately involved in LNG supply for a pioneering trial of its use as a rail locomotive fuel.
The focal point of the project is the Mugardos LNG terminal operated by Reganosa in the port of Ferrol, for which the Xunta – a part-owner – set out a short to medium term development plan
It plans to build a third storage tank and a second berth there in order to encourage more traffic from all types of ships, and to acquire a new feeder vessel to facilitate ship-to-ship operations, and set up LNG distribution to other Galician ports such as Vigo, A Coruna or Viveiro.
“Ports that don’t have LNG [supply stations] won’t be competitive”, said Reganosa general director Emilio Bruquetas at an energy fair in the region March 22. He also repeated a call for a new gas pipeline between Guitiriz and Zamora (the Meseta pipe project) to connect the isolated region to the rest of the Spanish and European gas system.
Spain has six operational LNG terminals: three on its Atlantic coast (including Reganosa) and three in the Mediterranean. Five of them, plus one mothballed at Gijon in Asturias, are fully or part-owned by Spanish gas grid operator Enagas but it has no stake in Reganosa.
The banner photo of the Mugardos LNG terminal is courtesy of Reganosa