The shareholders of Gastrade, the company that operates the new floating LNG terminal in the Greek port of Alexandropoulis, are considering co-opting a new shareholder, considering the interest shown by Romania and North Macedonia, energypress. eu reported.
According to the cited source, there is a positive response from the shareholders for the entry of a Romanian entity (probably the Transgaz state network management company) into the share capital of Gastrade with a percentage of approximately 10%.
A similar request was made by North Macedonia, as mentioned by, among others, Gastrade Vice President and CEO Kostis Sifnaios at an energy conference.
However, according to sources close to the situation, for reasons more related to politics, the company from Romania will enter the shareholding, not the one from North Macedonia.
The current shareholding structure of Gastrade includes five shareholders who share equal shares of 20% each. These are the Kopelouzou Group, Gaslog, DEPA, Emporias, Bulgartransgaz and DESFA.
The Alexandropoulis floating LNG terminal project was finalized earlier this year when a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) was moored off the port. The 155,000 cubic meter LNG unit is the first floating LNG terminal in Greece and will have a total delivery capacity of 5.5 billion cubic meters/year, with a peak dispatch of 22 million cubic meters per day, almost the daily equivalent of Romania’s entire natural gas production.
The floating offshore storage and re-gasification unit will be connected to the Greek national natural gas distribution system via a 28-kilometer pipeline. The gas will thus be able to be delivered to the markets of Greece and Bulgaria and, subsequently, to other countries in the region such as Romania, Serbia or North Macedonia, including prospects for supplying Ukraine. In addition, the gases brought here will also feed a future power plant, with a capacity similar to the one that Petrom operates in Brazi. As early as January 2023, PPC, DEPA Commercial and Damco Energy Copelouzos Group have partnered to begin construction of an 840 MW CCGT power plant that will be directly connected to the FSRU. The facility is now in testing, with commercial operation scheduled to begin this month.
