Italy’s Snam SpA said its regasification unit BW Singapore is ready to begin operations.
Commissioning activities for the facility have started with the arrival of the first cargo of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), Snam said in a news release. The unit has been moored off the coast of Punta Marina in Ravenna, Italy.
The first phase of commercial operations is slated for early May, according to the release.
BW Singapore has a storage capacity of about 6 million cubic feet (170,000 cubic meters) of LNG and a regasification capacity of about 176.6 billion cubic feet (five billion cubic meters) per year.
With the unit’s start of operations, Italy’s total regasification capacity will rise to 988.81 billion cubic feet (28 billion cubic meters) per year and will account for 45 percent of the country’s domestic gas demand, the company said.
Snam said the total investment in the regasification terminal amounts to over $1.14 billion (EUR 1 billion). The company said it estimates that regasification operations will result in approximately EUR 20 million to 30 million per year for technical-nautical services, platform management and environmental monitoring.
“With the entry into operation of the Ravenna terminal, we are adding another fundamentally important element to the process of securing the country’s energy supply, which began in the aftermath of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and has been made possible by the joint efforts of institutions and companies at both [the] national and local level,” Snam CEO Stefano Venier said. “We are not only keeping on schedule, we are also showing that this can go hand in hand with environmental protection and monitoring”.
In December 2023, Snam finalized the purchase of 100 percent of the share capital of FSRU I Limited, which owns the floating, storage, and regasification unit (FSRU) BW Singapore from BW LNG Ltd for a total consideration of approximately $400 million (EUR 367 million).
OGE Stake Acquisition
Last week, Snam entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire a 24.99 percent stake in the share capital of Luxembourg-based Vier Gas Holding S.à r.l. (VGH), which indirectly owns the entire share capital of Open Grid Europe (OGE), from Infinity Investments, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority’s investment vehicle.
The consideration for the transaction was an equity value of EUR 920 million, according to an earlier news release.
OGE is Germany’s largest independent gas transmission operator, managing a network extending for approximately 7,456 miles (12,000 kilometers), with an annual off-take volume of approximately 21 billion cubic meters and more than 400 end customers.
The transaction completion is expected within the third quarter, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent, Snam said.
“Upon completion of this acquisition, Snam will become the first-ever Italian energy player to make a sizeable entry into the German energy infrastructure space. The acquisition strengthens Snam’s position as Europe’s largest gas infrastructure operator and is fully in line with our strategy which focuses on the development of a pan-European, multi-molecule network located along the key European energy corridors, and in particular its most relevant corridor, running from Southern to Northern Europe,” Venier said.
Source: By Rocky Teodoro from Rigzone.com