The euphoria surrounding the floating LNG terminals on the German coast is dying down. Deutsche ReGas surprisingly terminates a charter contract with the federal government.
It concerns one of the two LNG tankers (FSRU) at the “Deutsche Ostsee” liquefied natural gas terminal at the port of Mukran on the island of Rügen. Ingo Wagner, Managing Partner, justifies this with the “ruinous pricing policy” of Deutsche Energy Terminal GmbH (DET), a federally owned company. This would halve the capacity at Mukran.
DET operates four FSRUs in Wilhelmshaven, Brunsbüttel and Stade. Supplying Germany with LNG was one of the strategic goals of the “energy transition” after the start of the war in Ukraine. LNG was intended to replace Russian pipeline natural gas. The expansion of the LNG terminal on Rügen was also pushed forward – despite massive protests from environmentalists.
Deutsche ReGas, the only private operator of LNG terminals in Germany, has now terminated the charter contract for the “Energos Power” with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK). The ship is one of two Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs). Only the state-financed ship “Energos Power” is affected by the termination. The second ship, the “Neptune”, was not chartered by Deutsche Regas from the federal government, but from the energy supplier Total.
According to ReGas, DET has been marketing its “capacities for the regulated LNG terminals systematically and significantly below the cost-covering fees approved by the Federal Network Agency” since December 2024. This has led to a “considerable market distortion in Germany”.
