The port hopes that the LNG facilities will increase its appeal to energy-intensive industries – they will be open to all energy consumers and suppliers.

Total costs per terminal are put at between €400m and €500m. The port authority is due to make a decision soon on its contribution towards the construction of the Gate Terminal by Gasunie and tank storage company Vopak. This investment is expected to be at the same sort of level as that for the LionGas facility.

Work is expected to start on the LionGas terminal this year, so that the first tankers would call in 2010.Beyond these two terminals, the port authority also has room earmarked for an LNG terminal in the Fourth Petroleum Harbour.

Rotterdam is on a mission to strengthen its position as an “energy port”– projects now under construction or within planning include Enecogen’s 840 MW gas plant at Europoort, a lifetime extension of E.on’s coal-fired power plant at Maasvlakte, Electrabel’s new 800 MW biomass/coal plant,also at Maasvlakte, PerGen’s new 250 MW gasfired power plant at Pernis, and 14 new wind turbines, to generate a total 27 MW, in Europoort.

“In the port area, gas and coalfuelled power plants, total energy plants, 80 wind turbines, and many terminals for LNG, coal, oil and biomass have already been or will be established,” says the port authority.

“Our goal is to ensure that companies in the port or industrial complex have sufficient amounts of competitively priced energy at their disposal that is as clean as possible.”

Rotterdam says it is experiencing growing competition in northwest Europe from other ports in the Hamburg-Le Havre range, with Hamburg and Antwerp developing particularly strongly.

“These ports have improved their price-quality ratio and regained some of their ‘natural’ hinterland by investing in terminals in recent years,” says the port authority. “Moreover, international shipowners are opting to call at several ports in Europe, rather than distributing throughout Europe from one ‘mainport’. This multiporting effect is an issue in the container sector in particular.”