Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo SA (PGNiG) has sold the first two LNG cargoes from the reloading station in Klaipėda. Since April 1st 2020, the Company has been the sole user of the station, located at the entrance to the Klaipėda port.

‘Despite the challenging market conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it took us only a week to launch our operations in Klaipėda. On the one hand this attests to our capabilities in small-scale LNG, while also confirming that the LNG markets in Lithuania and the other Baltic countries have considerable potential,’ said Jerzy Kwieciński, President of the PGNiG Management Board.

The two LNG trucks were loaded on April 7th, and both cargoes were purchased by CRYO Shipping, a Norwegian bunker fuel supplier for LNG fuelled ships. The company is active in the bunkering markets of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Lithuania.

“We are looking forward cooperating with PGNiG and developing our position as LNG bunker fuel supplier in Port of Klaipeda”, said Nicholai H. Olsen, Managing Director of CRYO Shipping.

The LNG cargoes bought from PGNiG were used to bunker the Greenland, a cement carrier moored at the wharf of the Klaipėda port and owned by Norway’s JT Cement AS.

Due to the environmental requirements, liquefied gas is increasingly preferred as a fuel for marine transport. The use of the LNG reloading station in Klaipėda offers PGNiG the opportunity to become a major supplier of LNG to ships operating in the region. The port of Klaipėda is one of the five largest ports in the Baltic Sea in terms of cargo handling volumes.

PGNiG won the tendering procedure for exclusive use of the Klaipėda reloading station in November 2019. The procedure was organised by Klaipėdos Nafta, which also operates a Floating LNG Regasification and Storage Unit in the Klaipėda port, a few kilometres away from the reloading station. The contract between the two companies came into force on April 1st 2020 and will remain valid for five years.

The LNG reloading station in Klaipėda has five tanks with a total capacity of 5,000 cubic metres (2,250 tonnes) of liquefied gas. It has two loading stations for LNG trucks and ISO containers, which can be used simultaneously. The wharf of the station makes it possible not only to receive LNG from vessels, but also to load LNG.