Situated at the mouth of the river Elbe delta on Germany’s North Sea coast, and with access to industrial clusters located north west of Hamburg, Brunsbüttel must be the ideal location for Germany’s first land-based LNG terminal.
During the initial planning phases, alternative locations at Wilhelmshaven, close to Bremen and Stade further upstream on the Elbe were also considered. Stade had the attraction that it was marginally closer to markets around Hamburg, but for the kind of shipping that will feed this mega-scale LNG terminal the mouth of the river was ultimately the more suitable location.
With phase-out of hard coal and lignite fired power stations in Germany by the end of the 2030’s, gas consumption is projected to increase. The Nordstream 2 pipeline which is currently under construction and will transfer natural gas from Russian sources to Germany will certainly help to satisfy this growth in demand. Additionally, this LNG terminal will add to the supply diversity and enable up access to US, Middle East and emerging African LNG sources. Putting the scale of the planned terminal into some context, at 240,000 cubic metres, the land-based LNG storage tank will be the biggest in Europe.
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