300th LNG cargo comes to Poland’s terminal as further expansion continues in the background

Poland’s Świnoujście LNG terminal, operated by the country’s gas transmission system operator, Gaz-System, has received its 300th liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipment since starting operation in late 2015.

The milestone took place on July 22, 2024, less than nine years after the first tanker delivered LNG cargo to the terminal in Świnoujście on December 11, 2015. This was also the terminal’s 32nd cargo this year. According to the Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG), part of Orlen Group, the shipment arrived in the tanks of the Prism Courage gas carrier from the Corpus Christi terminal in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, comprising 70,000 tons of LNG. 

Maritime LNG deliveries are described as one of the pillars of Poland’s gas security. Since the Świnoujście terminal was launched, PGNiG reports having received almost 24 million tons of raw material this way. The total volume of all 300 deliveries is around 358.9 terawatt-hours (TWh), equivalent to 23.6 million tonnes of LNG, or more than 31.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas in a gaseous state, which PGNiG claims could provide gas to all gas-using households in Poland for over six years.

“Natural gas is a raw material of strategic importance for Poland’s fuel and energy security. Almost 50 percent of all imports of the blue fuel to the country are LNG. We are diversifying the directions of its supply by sea thanks to the consistent strengthening of cooperation with partners from around the world and the construction of our own fleet of gas carriers, which will be expanded by more units next year. This will guarantee our independence and stability of supplies and strengthen our position on the global LNG market,” said Ireneusz Fąfara, President of the Management Board at Orlen.

As stated by PGNiG, LNG import in Świnoujście has been a cornerstone of the strategy to diversify gas imports to Poland from the start. The share of deliveries by sea has been systematically growing, from about 8% of gas deliveries from abroad in 2016 to 46% in 2023. The largest number of LNG deliveries to Świnoujście came from Qatar – 143, followed by the United States with 134 deliveries. Next up is Norway with 14 cargoes, Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago with three each, Egypt with two, and Equatorial Guinea with one.

Orlen places high importance on strengthening the role of LNG in the national energy security system with gas carrier acquisitions. The group intends to own eight units, four of which are already in use, with the first LNG carrier entering service in early 2023, and the second following suit in July. The remaining four are scheduled for delivery by the end of 2025.

The energy player believes the growing dynamics of liquefied natural gas imports to Poland is demonstrated by the increasingly shorter time between subsequent deliveries. The 100th LNG shipment arrived in July 2020, more than four years after the terminal was launched. The next batch of 100 shipments took much shorter to reach the terminal, just 28 months, while another 100 were received in the next 20 months.

Further increase in LNG imports and development of the group’s operations in this segment will be possible, among others, by developing two major projects that aim to increase their annual capacity to over 14 billion cubic meters of natural gas in a gaseous state.

The first is the expansion of the President Lech Kaczyński LNG terminal in Świnoujście. As part of the expansion project, TGE Gas Engineering and PORR were selected as contractors to build a third LNG tank in Świnoujście with a capacity of 180,000 cubic meters, before a permit for the tank was secured in 2021.

The other project entails building the country’s second LNG terminal in the port of Gdańsk, which will feature a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) situated around three kilometers off the coast. South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries is building the FSRU with an estimated regasification capacity of 6.1 bcm of gaseous fuel per year, whose entire regasification capacity has already been booked. 

As part of the requirements for obtaining an environmental permit, Gaz-System recently performed an environmental survey of the future floating terminal’s location. Designated by the EU as a “project of common interest”, the country’s first FSRU is scheduled to start operation in 2028.