The first LNG tanker for Germany is on its way to Wilhelmshaven

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Thick ship: The "Höegh Esperanza" is to become the hub of Wilhelmshaven's floating LNG terminal

Photo: Geir-Sindre Beach

The start of the first terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Germany is imminent in a few days.

The tanker and terminal ship "Höegh Esperanza" has made its way to Wilhelmshaven.

And it brings a large amount of LNG with it.

As data from the "Marinetraffic" portal shows, the "Höegh Esperanza" has been heading for the North Sea port since Saturday.

The 294 meter long and 46 meter wide tanker of the Norwegian company Höegh LNG should therefore reach Wilhelmshaven next Saturday.

The tanker is currently still sailing through the Mediterranean Sea, on Sunday morning it was heading for the Straits of Gibraltar.

The "Höegh Esperanza" is the floating terminal ship (Floating Storage Regasification Unit, FSRU) of the Wilhelmshaven LNG project.

It has a facility in which the liquefied natural gas, which has been cooled to around minus 162 degrees, can be regasified.

The federal government has chartered the "Höegh Esperanza" for Wilhelmshaven.

Large draft indicates a lot of LNG on board

The tanker itself can load up to 170,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas;

in gaseous state, this corresponds to around 100 million cubic meters.

Until Saturday it was in the Spanish LNG terminal Sagunto near Valencia - and apparently took in masses of liquefied natural gas there.

"The Spanish terminal data indicate that the tanker was loaded in Sagunto," Alex Froley, LNG expert at the London analysis company ICIS, told SPIEGEL.

"This is also confirmed by the draft, which has increased to 11.80 metres." Before Sagunto, the "Höegh Esperanza" had a draft of significantly less than ten metres.

A spokesman for the Düsseldorf energy company Uniper confirmed to SPIEGEL that the "Höegh Esperanza" is heading to Wilhelmshaven and is loaded.

Uniper is to operate the floating terminal together with partners on behalf of the state.

Group boss Klaus Maubach had promised SPIEGEL weeks ago that the terminal could be opened before Christmas.

In the future, up to 7.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year are to be handled and fed into the grid in the terminal, which corresponds to around 8.5 percent of German gas consumption.

To this end, two more floating terminals in Brunsbüttel (RWE) and Lubmin (Deutsche Regas) are to start operations in the coming weeks.

Together, the three plants could cover about 20 percent of Germany's annual needs.

Up to three more FSRUs are to be installed on the North and Baltic Sea coasts in winter 2023/24.

On top of that, several permanently installed systems are being planned, which should start in 2025 or 2026.

LNG terminals are considered crucial to secure Germany and Europe's gas supply.

Russia, which still covered more than half of the demand in 2020, has not delivered any natural gas to Germany via pipelines since September.

This year, the Europeans were able to largely compensate for the sharp drop in supplies from Putin's empire with LNG.

The raw material comes mainly from the USA.

Because of the pipeline deliveries, especially from Russia, the comparatively high costs of liquefied natural gas and some LNG terminals in neighboring countries, Germany had not afforded a single terminal of its own until this year.