Finland’s floating LNG terminal is ready for gas delivery

The floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the deep harbour at Inkoo, Finland is now fully ready for use and gas deliveries, said Gasgrid, state-owned company and transmission system operator in a press release on Monday.

The floating terminal project successfully implemented by Gasgrid Finland will secure the supply of gas to industry, energy production and households as well as safeguard Finland’s security of supply and the continuation of gas supplies far into the future.

The LNG floating terminal vessel Exemplar reached Inkoo on 28 December last year and has now been successfully integrated into Gasgrid Finland’s gas transmission network.

“We have now got our LNG floating terminal fully up and running and all the required official permits to start commercial operations are in place. Everything has now been finalised and tested. This means that the customers of our terminal can begin to distribute gas to meet the needs of industry, energy production and households not just in Finland but also in the Baltic states,” said Esa Hallivuori, Senior Vice President, Transmission Business of Gasgrid Finland.

”Our LNG floating terminal has already generated plenty of interest and enquiries from various parties. We believe that there is a real need for the energy provided by our terminal both now and going forward. The LNG floating terminal can provide a huge amount of energy also for heat and power production when needed,” Hallivuori added.

The LNG floating terminal vessel is 291 m long and when fully laden holds around 68,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which corresponds to around 1,050 GWh of energy.

The LNG is regasified on board the vessel, after which the natural gas is transferred via a loading arm to a 2.2-km connecting pipeline and then on to end customers through Gasgrid Finland’s gas network.

The vessel has an annual regasification capacity of 40 TWh, which far exceeds Finland’s annual need for natural gas. The LNG terminal also enables gas deliveries to the Baltic states and even to Poland through the Balticconnector pipeline.

Liquefied natural gas will be supplied to the LNG terminal from the international market. No Russian gas is used at the terminal and the LNG terminal will help Finland to permanently phase out its dependency on Russian gas. The LNG floating terminal is operated by Gasgrid Finland’s subsidiary Gasgrid Floating LNG Terminal Finland.

In fall 2022, Gasgrid Finland sent an inquiry to various operators about whether they would be interested in booking capacity from the commissioning cargo, a batch of approximately 1TWh LNG.

The LNG procured for commissioning and testing has been used for cooling and technical testing as part of the commissioning process of the LNG floating terminal in Inkoo. During the commissioning period lasting until January 25, 2023, gas will be delivered to Shippers who have made a reservation for this lot, as well as to secure Finland's security of supply.