Contamination levels of regasified LNG being shipped to Europe via the UK have reached unprecedented heights. EU energy companies have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on clean-up and are threatening to halt supplies.
European traders have called on the operator of Britain’s gas transmission system, National Grid, to take urgent action on the quality of the gas being transported to Europe, The Financial Times reports.
Belgium’s Fluxys, France’s EDF and Germany’s Security Energy for Europe, formerly Gazprom Germania and owned by Gazprom, said high levels of hazardous substances had been detected in the gas since April. Among them are radioactive and flammable substances.
The heads of the energy company told the publication that solid substances have been found in the gas as well. All of this has caused the European traders to spend £270 million to fix the gas supply disruption and clean up the gas. In the future, such a situation threatens to cause supply stoppages for technical reasons.
As The Financial Times notes, against this background, National Grid is asking the British regulator to allow it to increase supply to Europe.
The UK has a well-developed LNG terminal infrastructure and has become one of the points through which Europe is increasing its LNG imports. The daily supply exceeds 60 million cubic metres per day, which partly compensates for the decline in Russian gas supplies and keeps the gas in storage at a sufficiently high level. As of 6 August, according to GIE data, the storage facilities were 71.5% full. There were 75.6 billion cubic meters in storage.
On the one hand, the UK does not have large gas storage facilities and local traders oversell the volumes. On the other hand, LNG terminals are actively used by companies that were large consumers of Russian gas, but supplies have declined due to the situation with turbines for the Nord Stream compressor station.
492 total views, 2 views today
