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Steinmeier with Lopez Obrador: Mexico as an export hub for liquid gas?
Photo:
IMAGO/Carlos Tischler Eyepix Group/IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Mexico and Germany want to explore closer cooperation on the delivery of liquid gas to the Federal Republic.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had offered him more intensive cooperation, said Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after talks in Mexico City.
The country undoubtedly has resources and experience in gas exports, especially to the USA.
Experts should now explore what could realistically be brought to Europe and whether facilities in the USA could possibly be used.
With Mexico, after Norway, Qatar or Canada, another country is coming into focus that could help to compensate for the German hunger for energy in view of the threatened permanent loss of Russian natural gas.
LPG is usually more expensive than gas that is transported through pipelines.
However, it can be flexibly transported to gasification plants in tankers.
So far, however, Mexico has not exported any liquid gas.
However, the country is one of Latin America's largest crude oil exporters - and plans to become a hub for exporting US-produced gas.
Fracking gas production is currently booming in the USA near the Mexican border.
Germany currently receives natural gas via pipelines from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium.
In order to be able to receive liquid gas at all, terminals for landing on the North Sea coast are to go into operation at the turn of the year.
Work is also underway in Lubmin on the Baltic Sea for the construction of an LNG terminal, which is scheduled to go into operation at the beginning of December.
Further approvals for German LNG terminal
The first preparatory construction work for a planned import terminal in Stade on the Elbe can now begin.
The competent authority, the Lower Saxony State Office for Water Management, Coastal Protection and Nature Conservation (NLWKN), gave the approval for the first partial work, as the State Ministry of Energy announced on Tuesday.
This should now be used to build any necessary dike crossings and sheet piling and to carry out dredging work in the harbor basin.
With the terminals and liquid gas from all over the world, the federal government wants to ensure the supply of energy in this country in the medium term.
It could be months before this is secured.
After all: According to data from European storage operators, the German gas storage facilities were more than 90 percent full on Monday.
That could cover the nationwide consumption of two winter months.
The storage facilities balance out fluctuations and form a kind of buffer system for the gas market.
A regulation stipulates that the storage tanks should be at least 95 percent full by November 1st.
Germany should be able to cope better with the total failure of Russian deliveries.
Apr/dpa/Reuters
