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Italy received FSRU Golar Tundra, ignoring local opposition at port of Piombino
Italy has received its first LNG Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) at Piombino port on Sunday. The fourth FSRU of Italy, reached the port of Piombino on Sunday when local residents marched through the streets opposing FSRU deployment. Snam- the Italian energy major which acquired the FSRU from Golar LNG, stated early in the week, that the FSRU based terminal will become operational in May this year despite opposition from local residents and environment groups. Snam plans to use FSRU Golar Tundra for three years before moving it offshore. Once becomes operational, Golar Tundra can meet around seven percent of country’s gas requirement.
Apart from its latest FSRU based terminal, Italy has its oldest regasification terminal at Paningaglia, set up in 1971 with an annual regas capacity of 3.5bcm. The facility is owned and operated by GNL Italia, a wholly owned unit of Snam. Italy had its another FSRU based terminal FSRU Toscana with 3.75bcm capacity, commissioned in December 2013. Following Russia Ukraine war last year, Italy cleared the deck to increase the FSRU Toscana capacity from 3.75bcm/y to 5 bcm/y replacing Russian piped natural gas. Snam owns 49.1% stake in OLT Offshore LNG Toscana whereas Igneo Infrastructure Partners owns 48.2% and Golar LNG owns 2% stake in the project. Russia was meeting around 40% of Italy’s annual natural gas demand just before the Russia Ukraine war. The piped gas supply from Russia came down to around 16% last year in 2022 post international sanctions.
Last year Snam had leased FSRU BW Singapore from the BW group. Company plans to deploy FSRU BW Singapore with 5bcm/year capacity, around 8km off the coast of Ravenna, in the Adriatic Sea by the end of 2024.
Adriatic LNG with 9bcm/year capacity is the biggest of the LNG receiving facilities of Italy, located in the northern Adriatic Sea, around 15km from Porto Viro in the Veneto region. ExxonMobil the largest stake holder in the project plans to sell its 70.7% stake in the project. Snam with 7.3% stake holder in the project is likely to buy ExxonMobil stake in Adriatic LNG where Qatar Energy is also an equity holder with 22% stake in the project.