Threatening gas emergency: Exaggerated expectations of the LNG terminals in Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel

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Established in other countries for many years

: LNG terminals in Futtsu, Japan, east of Tokyo (a photo from 2013)

Photo: ISSEI KATO/ REUTERS

The German economy is on alert.

The Ukraine war and the threatening gas supply stop from Russia could cause massive problems.

The corporations are already preparing for failure scenarios with significantly reduced gas volumes, in extreme cases entire factories would have to be shut down.

The President of the Federal Network Agency,

(51), now even fears a possible total failure of Russian deliveries.

Even in such a case, Germany is not completely without gas - the raw material can also be imported from Norway or the Netherlands.

But in order to close the gap, many hopes now rest on a miracle abbreviation: LNG.

According to the logic, Germany could compensate for part of the deliveries from Russia with "Liquefied Natural Gas" (LNG).

The liquid gas can easily be imported by ship from distant countries.

In theory at least.

Because in practice, the hopes often turn out to be exaggerated.

The Federal Ministry of Economics under

(52; Greens) has been working flat out for months on an LNG offensive.

Many countries around the world with access to the sea have had the necessary terminals, some of them for years;

in the EU states with a total of 21 such plants, this is not the case in Germany.

For a long time, local politics had refused.

Habeck announced at the weekend that at least two of the four planned floating terminals in Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel should be ready for operation by the turn of the year.

You have to set a pace "that has never existed in Germany before".

Appropriately, the official approval of the early start of construction work for the LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven followed on Monday by the Oldenburg Trade Inspectorate.

Up to 7.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year are to be handled via this terminal as quickly as possible - that would be around 8.5 percent of Germany's annual gas requirements.

The quick approval shows "the importance of the LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven for the security of supply in the country," said

(60), CEO of the financially troubled energy group Uniper, who is responsible for operating the plant in Wilhelmshaven.

Lower Saxony Environment and Energy Minister

(55; SPD) was pleased about the new "Germany speed" in the complex project: "We plan, approve and build at eight times the speed."

The approval refers to all parts of both the land and the sea-side infrastructure.

In addition, there is an approximately 30-kilometer-long high-pressure gas pipeline between the floating terminal ("Floating Storage and Regasification Unit" /

FSRU) and the transfer point to the natural gas pipeline network of "Open Grid Europe" (OGE).

Only a small part of the German gas requirement

The plans of Germany and other European countries are ambitious: around 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas are to be replaced by LNG across Europe in the coming years.

According to the plans, around 15 percent of them should come via Wilhelmshaven.

But whether the system can ever play the role intended for it is unclear.

Critics complain that the capacity of many plants of this type is often not exhausted;

that could also be the case in Wilhelmshaven.

The Federal Ministry of Economics is therefore cautiously expecting only five billion cubic meters instead of the 7.5 billion announced by Uniper - a third less.

In addition, LNG is expensive and pollutes the environment.

Brunsbüttel is planned with a capacity similar to that in Wilhelmshaven.

Here, too, the terminal is scheduled to go into operation at the turn of the year, but two pipelines are required there, including a line to Hamburg, in order to ultimately enable full capacity utilization.

Corresponding pipelines should have the advantage that they can later be used for green hydrogen, among other things, after conversions.

In this way, investment ruins could be avoided.

But for the four floating LNG terminals alone, Germany will already be paying almost 2.5 billion euros in the coming years.

A further problem could then arise with the delivery of the LNG.

According to industry experts, the gas may not arrive in Germany until the middle of next winter - and thus possibly too late to absorb the peak in demand.

The other two floating terminals have only been booked for next spring anyway.

Despite the increased speed of approval, only a fraction of Germany's gas requirements this winter can be covered with LNG.

Additional capacities through fixed LNG terminals

LNG capacities could only increase significantly in the long term.

Permanent terminals are also planned in Germany in the coming years.

One of them is also in Brunsbüttel, around 500 meters upstream from the FSRU facility.

The project planned by the company German LNG Terminal will be built for the import and further distribution of liquefied natural gas and will have two LNG tanks.

"These enable flexible logistics for the storage and retrieval of LNG and also have an LNG regasification system," said a spokesman for manager magazin.

The terminal will have a throughput capacity of up to eight billion standard cubic meters of natural gas per year, which can be expanded to ten billion.

All those involved would work to further accelerate the project, the spokesman said.

But: "Under today's conditions, it is realistic to expect completion in 2026."