TotalEnergies backs German LNG terminal on Baltic coast

French energy giant TotalEnergies will help Germany import more seaborne natural gas this year, as Russian moves to limit deliveries threaten a winter shortage in Europe’s largest economy, the German partner, Deutsche ReGas, said on Wednesday.

TotalEnergies “signed an agreement for the installation and operation” of a floating terminal for the importing of liquefied natural gas, Deutsche ReGas said in a statement.

The LNG terminal, owned by the French group, will be docked in the northeastern town of Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic coast, where the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia makes ground.

Currently, supplies of natural gas from the Russian energy group Gazprom via the pipeline are paused as it undergoes maintenance.

But fears abound in Berlin that the taps may never be turned back on as relations between Russia and the West are at their lowest in years following the invasion of Ukraine.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Germany has sought to reduce its dependency on Russian energy imports.

A long-term shutdown would nonetheless hit Germany hard, with the country still reliant on Russian imports to meet its energy needs.

To substitute Russian gas, the government has chartered four floating LNG terminals, together with German energy groups Uniper and RWE, to import seaborne supplies from other producers such as Qatar or the United States.

The first of these, in northwestern Wilhelmshaven, could come online at the end of the year.

The project in Lubmin is independent of the government’s efforts and is set to start operating on December 1 and have a capacity of 4.5 billion cubic metres a year, according to the statement.

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