OVIEDO, 1 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The El Musel liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, in Gijón, received this Saturday the first ship, the Cool Racer _with a capacity of 174,000 m3_, which will carry out a first unloading, necessary for the final technical tests before commissioning. commercial operation of the plant. This download operation will last between 72 and 90 hours.
The ship docked at 8:20 a.m. with 150,000 MT of liquefied gas from the United States. On the occasion of their arrival, the Civil Guard established a special protection device that began at around 4:00 a.m. when the patrol boat of the Maritime Service ‘Río Esera’, after reconnaissing the internal waters, went out to meet the methane tanker, which which occurred at the height of Cabo Peñas.
The escort started to the mouth of the port, at which time the Underwater Activities Group (GEAS) took charge of its protection in inland waters with the support of the UHEL helicopter of the Civil Guard of Asturias until its final docking.
While the approach and docking maneuver was being carried out in the device, members of the Fiscal and Border Section of El Musel, USECIC, G.I.C., UOPJ, Grupo Cinológico, GEDEX, COS, Equipo PEGASO and other Citizen Security and Fiscal units of the Gijon Company.
The start-up of El Musel represents a milestone for the start of commercial operations of the infrastructure, which forms part of the Government’s More Energy Security Plan, and will make it possible to reinforce the security of energy supply in Europe, Enagas has indicated through Press release.
Thus, the Gijón plant could contribute up to 8 bcm (billion cubic meters) of LNG capacity per year to the security of European energy supply. It will allow the berthing of vessels between 50,000 and 266,000 m3, it has two 150,000 m3 LNG storage capacity tanks, two tanker loading bays with a capacity to load a maximum of 9 GWh/d and a maximum emission capacity of 800,000 Nm3/ h.
There are already 53 people working at the plant and it additionally generates around 100 indirect jobs. In the commissioning phase, professionals specialized in this type of process have been posted from other Enagás terminals.
The plant is only pending the processing of the Final Commissioning Act by the Industry and Energy Area of the Government Delegation in the Principality of Asturias, which will be issued once the technical tests of the terminal have been completed.
On the other hand, this Friday ended the period for retailers to show their interest in the binding phase of the process, which will end in July with the assignment of long-term logistics services, and operations are scheduled to begin with the arrival at the plant of the first commercial methane tanker in the coming weeks, once the technical tests of the terminal are finished.
The logistics services offered for this infrastructure are LNG unloading, storage and loading operations. Within the regulated access regime, the El Musel Plant contemplates a minimum regasification for the correct management of the terminal, as well as the tanker loading service.
On February 28, Enagás and Reganosa signed an agreement to acquire by Enagás the 130 km network of Reganosa gas pipelines and this 25% of the El Musel Plant. This operation will make it possible to take advantage of their synergies and work together on the services offered by the plant and on new collaboration possibilities to reinforce security of supply and advance the decarbonisation objectives of Spain and Europe.
