30
LNG
INDUSTRY
JULY
2016
approved, is listed in the commercial area of the OLT website,
which potential users can access freely. The list is currently
composed of approximately 60 LNG carriers that have been
approved.
From a commercial point of view, OLT allocates the capacity
to users through different allocation processes on a long-term
basis (up to five years) and on a short-term basis (it will soon be
able to provide slot capacity allocated with 10 days advance
notice). The terminal is a regulated infrastructure with a ‘third
party access’ (TPA) regime. Therefore, its services are available to
anyone who wishes to apply for them on a non-discriminatory
basis for all customers.
Regasification
In the last few years, the global LNGmarket has been slowly
switching from long-term contracts to spot contracts. This trend
has been confirmed in the European market, where short-term
supply contracts (generally 1 – 3 years) or sales of individual
loads have been seen, depending on prevailing market
conditions. In this context, LNG is often supplied and delivered
through partial deliveries (called ‘part cargo’ or ‘milk run’). This
practice consists of delivering part of the cargo transported by
the LNG carrier. Consequently, during the same trip, the LNG
carrier can make several partial deliveries to more than one
terminal.
Peak shaving
In line with the EU Energy Policy on the security of supply, the
Italian government has established a peak shaving service to
overcome unfavourable events for the national gas system, and
to guarantee its security. In case of an emergency, LNG terminals
are requested to inject regasified gas into the national gas grid
at short notice to help meet the peak requests of the gas system
for a limited period of time. The quantity and price of LNG is
determined by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development
and the Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity Gas andWater
(AEEGSI) through a tender, which takes place at the end of each
year. OLT has offered peak shaving since it started operations,
and has received a peak shaving cargo every year.
In December 2015, OLT concluded the discharge of the
LNG carrier,
Saratoga
, ensuring the service until the end of
March 2016. During this period, no emergency events took place.
As such, part of the LNG discharged in December 2015 was
redelivered to the user, winner of the tender, in April 2016.
Even with the LNG quantities stored onboard for peak
shaving, the terminal is available for customers requesting
regasification capacity.
Regasification and storage
bundled service
Pursuant to a specific decree of the Italian Ministry of Economic
Development, and to a defined provision of the AEEGSI (both
issued in 1Q16), fromMay to August 2016, OLT, along with other
Italian terminals, will offer capacities for a regasification and
storage bundled service. The service foresees that a quantity
of regasified natural gas equivalent to the LNG delivered will
be stored by the Italian storage company, Stogit, and made
available to the user starting from the end of the following
month. The LNG terminals and Stogit will coordinate the
physical management of gas flows from the LNG carrier to the
storage sites.
On 20 April 2016, the procedure for the allocation of capacity
of the regasification and storage bundled service, referring to the
Storage Gas Year 2016/2017, was successfully completed.
Approximately 50% of the 1 billion m
3
storage capacity
auctioned has been successfully allocated.
The tender launched by OLT received a positive response.
Taking into account the operational limits of Italian storage, it
was possible to allocate to OLT a total of 440 million m
3
of
natural gas that will be injected into the Stogit storage system.
This represents a good result for the Italian LNGmarket in
terms of Mediterranean LNGmarket recovery. It also serves as
proof that
FSRU Toscana
is playing an important role in Italy’s
strategy to guarantee its energy supply security.
Future perspectives
The EU strategy, as recently expressed by the European
Commission, aims to exploit the potential of LNG and gas
Figure 1.
FSRU Toscana
terminal
Figure 2.
Mooring turret.
Figure 3.
Aerial view of the terminal’s deck.
