Berlin/Rostock (dpa/mv) - Before Rostock there could be a privately operated LNG terminal. After a corresponding announcement by Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens), a spokesman for the Schwerin Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday: "We have always said that LNG is also possible in Rostock in the medium term." However, nothing is known in the Rostock port. "We have no information about other LNG projects," said a port spokesman when asked by the German Press Agency.
Habeck said on Thursday that a private LNG project was planned in Rostock. This is "but not so that I put it as finished". But there is a good perspective of also importing liquefied gas to Germany for the coming winter.
The Greens member of the Bundestag from MV, Claudia Müller, welcomed the development. "I expressly welcome the fact that it is once again being intensively examined whether an LNG terminal can be set up off Rostock." The main issue here is whether sufficient safety distances to other port areas can be guaranteed. "In the current global world situation, it is urgently necessary for German energy security to increase the capacities for the delivery of LNG as quickly as possible."
The ministry spokesman in Schwerin emphasized that it is now a matter of pushing ahead with the projects in Lubmin - a private landing and an LNG terminal rented by the federal government - at full speed. "In order to secure the future of energy supply, we rely on hydrogen. Here we expect the support of the federal government at the Rostock energy port."
As a result of the war in Ukraine, the federal government wants to make Germany less dependent on Russian energy supplies and is relying, among other things, on LNG imports. She has also pledged to refrain from taking Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline from next year. The PCK refinery in Schwedt (Brandenburg), which is particularly important for East German fuel supplies, has so far been heavily dependent on Russian pipeline oil. Rostock should step in here. That's why, so far, it has been said that the port of Rostock is out for the time being as a possible location for the simultaneous landing of LNG. There were security concerns.
According to plans by the company Deutsche Regas, up to 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year are to be fed into the German transmission network in Lubmin from December this year. For this purpose, a floating LNG terminal is to be moored off Lubmin. This is said to come from the French energy group Totalenergies. The federal LNG terminal in Lubmin should be operational by the end of 2023.
