The Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market is on the rise in the Baltic Sea region, particularly in the maritime industry. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) established new sulphur content limits for marine fuels sailing in Emission Control Areas (ECA) as of 1 January 2015.<\/p>\n
The new regulation will cap the sulphur content of fuel from the current level of 1.0% to a maximum of 0.1% in Emission Control Areas (ECA). Those areas include the Baltic Sea, North Sea and the English Channel. LNG is a cleaner fuel alternative that can help meet the new emission requirements.<\/p>\n
Tallink\u2019s LNG fast ferry<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b>Passenger ferries are among the growing LNG industry customers. For example, Tallink announced this autumn the development of its new LNG powered fast ferry for the Tallinn-Helsinki route.<\/p>\n
The new ferry will be approximately 212m in length with a gross tonnage of 49,000. The ship will operate between Helsinki and Tallinn and is designed to carry 2,800 passengers at a speed of 27 knots. Janek Stalmeister, CEO of AS Tallink Grupp, said: \u201cWith the new Tallink fast ferry we are taking the next step in the technical development of the LNG ferries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new ship will use LNG as fuel and comply with the new emission regulations.<\/p>\n
Baltic LNG Infrastructure<\/b><\/p>\n
The expanding LNG market in the regions means an extensive network of ports with planned facilities for LNG bunkering in the Baltic Sea region.<\/p>\n
Lithuania was the first Baltic country to build and launch LNG infrastructure with its floating LNG terminal at Klaipeda in December 2014. This has been successful because it allows the country to obtain natural gas from multiple sources and sell its surplus gas to growing LNG customers.<\/p>\n
Finland plans to build a series of off-grid LNG terminals along its western coast to serve shipping industry customers. Finnish gas company Gasum, through its subsidiary Skangas, is constructing an LNG terminal in Pori and is also a co-owner of the LNG terminal under construction in Tornio, Finland.<\/p>\n
Gasum told GreenPort<\/em>: \u201cLNG has an increasing importance in Gasum\u2019s strategy to provide natural gas solutions in the Nordic markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Estonia has plans for two LNG terminals. In addition to the planned LNG terminal with the proposed BalticConnector project, Estonia recently applied for funding for a second LNG terminal to be built at Estonia\u2019s Paldiski Port.<\/p>\n Natural gas infrastructure in the Baltics could potentially provide larger quantities of natural gas at more competitive prices for Finland to open the market to the rest of the Nordic region. This LNG network should be made possible with the development and construction of the Finland-Estonia Balticconnector.<\/p>\n The BalticConnector<\/b> Estonian gas TSO, Elering Gaas AS, and Finnish state owned company, Baltic Connector OY, applied together to European Commission for the construction of the Estonian-Finnish gas interconnector Balticconnector.<\/p>\n The proposed project includes an underwater gas transmission pipeline 81km across the seabed of the Gulf of Finland, with compressor stations on both coasts. According to the proposal, the Balticconnector would allow for gas flows of up to 7.2m3 <\/sup>per day and the total cost is estimated at \u20ac250m. The Balticconnector will be commissioned by 2019.<\/p>\n Going forward<\/strong><\/p>\n In an attempt to reduce emissions in the Baltic Sea region and open markets to cleaner fuel sources, countries and companies are ready to adapt to new sources and enter new markets such as LNG. Over the next few years, the network of LNG terminals in the Baltic region and northern Europe will continue to be developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Economic and environmental opportunities lie ahead as the Baltic-Nordic regions plan new LNG terminals, writes Lauren Riga, international energy and sustainability analyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-fuels-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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