Klaipeda FSRU

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Klaipėda FSRU is an operating FSRU (floating storage and regasification unit) LNG import terminal in Lithuania.

Location

The map below shows the current location of the FSRU, in the port of Klaipėda, Klaipėda County.

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Project Details

• Operator: Höegh LNG Klaipeda
• Owner: KN Energies
• Parent Company: Lithuanian Ministry of Energy, UAB koncernas "Achemos grupė", Other
• Vessel: Höegh Independence
• Vessel Operator: Höegh LNG Klaipeda
• Vessel Owner: KN Energies
• Vessel Parent company: Lithuanian Ministry of Energy, UAB koncernas "Achemos grupė", Other
• Location: Klaipėda Port, Klaipėda, Klaipėda County, Lithuania
• Coordinates: 55.66451, 21.13762 (exact)
• Capacity: 2.9 mtpa
• Cost: LTL 350 million (approx. US$128 million in 2014)
• Financing: €87 million loan from the European Investment Bank; two loans totalling €294.1 million from the Nordic Investment Bank
• Status: Operating
• Type: Import
• Start Year: 2014

Expansion Project

• Operator:
• Owner: KN Energies
• Parent Company: Lithuanian Ministry of Energy, UAB koncernas "Achemos grupė", Other
• Vessel Operator:
• Vessel Owner:
• Vessel Parent company:
• Location: Klaipėda Port, Klaipėda, Klaipėda County, Lithuania
• Coordinates: 55.66451, 21.13762 (exact)
• Capacity: 1.84 mtpa (2.5 bcm/y)
• Cost:
• Financing:
• Status: Shelved
• Type: Import
• Start Year: 2026

Note: mtpa = million tonnes per year; bcfd = billion cubic feet per day

Background

The Independence was ordered in June 2011, and this is taken to be the proposal date; construction began in September 2012. In March 2012, Höegh LNG entered into a 10-year charter for the FSRU vessel, and this is the presumed final investment decision date.

In July 2013 the European Investment Bank signed an €87 million loan for the project with Klaipedos Nafta.

The terminal has chartered the FSRU known as Independence, built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, and delivered to the Klaipėda port in October 2014; the ship is owned by Höegh, and leased for $68 million per year.

The terminal began operating in December 2014.

According to Food and Water Europe's 2019 profile of gas use and production in Lithuania, "...the new LNG terminal hasn’t (yet) led to any significant change in the amount of gas consumed in the country. With an average use of only 23% in the Klaipeda terminal, it has not fulfilled the promises made by its promoters. Running at only 80% capacity, the terminal could cover the gas use of the entire Baltic region....the utilization rate of the terminal is quite low and a big share of the capacity is booked not by an energy company but a fertilizer producer, Achema." This 23% average utilisation rate was for the period 2012-2017. According to Tadas Matulionis, LNG business director at Klaipedos Nafta, 2019 was a record year for the terminal with regasification and reloading volumes more than doubling from 2018. The terminal handled more than 60 ship-to-ship operations and saw utilisation rates of nearly 90% of nameplate capacity. The company's utilisation rate figures do not align, however, with Food and Water Europe analysis based on industry data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. For both 2019 and 2020, Food and Water Europe shows the Klaipėda terminal's unused import capacity still standing at over 50%.

In 2017, Lithuania signed the first deal to import fracked U.S. gas.

Under EU state aid rules, the European Commission has twice (in 2013 and 2020) given Lithuania approval to issue state guarantees for loans for the project. The state aid approved by the Commission in 2013 amounted to €448 million. The latest state guarantee insures a loan agreement for up to €160 million between Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) and Klaipedos Nafta which will serve to finance the purchase of the FSRU and restructuring of the LNG terminal maintenance costs. In 2019, NIB granted Klaipedos Nafta a loan of €134.1 million to partly cover the operating lease payments and enable equalised tariff levels to be maintained throughout the full lifetime of the terminal.

In January 2021, Lithuania's Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys suggested that there were plans for the Klaipeda terminal to supply the proposed Ostroleka power station, a power plant project in north-east Poland which was previously planned as a thermal coal plant but which is to be converted to a gas plant by its promoters. Ostroleka would receive the gas from Lithuania via the Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania (GIPL) pipeline, currently under construction and forecast to be operational by the end of 2021.

In February 2022, Klaipedos Nafta (KN) said its shareholders have approved the acquisition of Hoegh LNG’s FSRU Independence for $153.5 million. FSRU Independence has been leased from Hoegh LNG since 2014. KN said it would become the owner of the FSRU "by December 31, 2024, at the latest."

As of April 2022, Lithuania was reportedly supplying the entirety of its gas demand via the terminal, following a complete abandonment of of Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine.

In March 2024, KN Energies took over ownership of the Hoegh Independence FSRU, and Hoegh's Hoegh LNG Klaipeda took over as operator of the vessel.

Proposed Expansion

In March 2022 Klaipedos Nafta was "considering" expanding the terminal's technical regasification capacity to 5 bcm/y "in the long term".

The 2023 GIIGNL report states that the developers are now considering expanding the terminal by 2.5 bcm/y in the second half of 2026.

In November 2023, LNG Prime reported that the firm had said, "After assessing the low interest in long-term capacity after 2033 and the potential growth of LNG supply in the region and other risks, KN decided to postpone the terminal capacity development project for the future and will offer LNG terminal capacity to the market at a “later stage." The expansion project is considered to be shelved.

Associated Pipelines

Two pipelines are associated with the Klaipeda terminal, connecting the terminal to the other Baltic countries. The Klaipeda Kursenai Gas Transmission Pipeline is a 111 km pipeline, with a 3.7 bcm/y transport capacity. It connects the LNG terminal to the Baltic gas market. Construction was completed in October 2015 (€60 million, with €27.6 million coming from EU funds). The proposed expansion of the Lithuania-Latvia Interconnection Gas Pipeline has been granted PCI status and will double the current capacity, reaching 4.4 billion cubic meters per year.