Russia’s gas independent Novatek is extending its move into the downstream, launching an LNG fuelling station in Germany and delivering ISO tanks to China.
This follows the first ship-to-ship LNG transhipment in Murmansk, last week.
Novatek Green Energy has launched its first carbon neutral LNG fuelling station, it said today. It has opened the facility in Rostock.
The company has offset the LNG’s carbon footprint through offsets to reduce emissions, including wind generation in developing countries. The emission reductions are in line with the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS).
Novatek said it planned to build a network of LNG fuelling stations, along transport points between Germany and Poland. The company has six fuelling stations in Europe, with 19 regasification facilities.
The company’s first deputy chairman Lev Feodosyev said natural gas was a clean fuel. “Our flagship Yamal LNG project is already one of the most environmentally friendly LNG plants in the world.”
The carbon offsets for the Rostock station covers upstream transport of LNG to the fuelling station, the operations of the fuelling station and the final consumption of the LNG by customers.
Russia is facing competition in supplying gas to Germany from the US. In particular, the US has taken steps to prevent the start of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The environmental impact and merits of gas is one area of debate in Germany.
Asian supplies
Novatek has also delivered its first LNG-holding ISO tanks to China. The delivery was carried out jointly with Japan’s Saibu Gas, with gas going to China’s Tiger Gas.
The Russian company said Tiger Gas owned the ISO containers, which were delivered to Shanghai under a spot contract. They originated from Japan’s Hibiki container terminal.
Feodosyev said deliveries of ISO containers of LNG would “exponentially increase over the upcoming decades, allowing us to diversify our customer base by including small-scale LNG consumers and entering the downstream markets in China and Japan”.
Novatek recently carried out Russia’s first ship-to-ship LNG transhipment in the Barents Sea. The Arc7 ice-class LNG tanker Nikolay Yevgenov reloaded a cargo to the conventional Yamal Spirit.
The company is working on a permanent solution for transhipment at Murmansk. This would allow it to use its ice-class tankers to serve Yamal LNG – and in future Arctic LNG 2 – and transfer gas to less capable vessels.