Wingas revealed that, alongside the largest natural gas storage facility in western Europe, which is run by Wingas and situated in Rehden in North Germany, and the storage facility in Haidach near Salzburg, Austria, which recently started operations, further storage capacities in Saltfleetby in England and in Jemgum near the German-Dutch border will be set up.
The Saltfleetby expansion project will be conducted jointly with ZMB Gasspeicher Holding GmbH, a subsidiary of Gazprom. Once operational, this facility will accommodate more than 700 million cubic meters of natural gas. However, there are currently delays in the authorization process – caused by the local planning authority in the UK – for a building permit for the storage project.
The Jemgum facility, meanwhile, lies in the direct vicinity of the Nord Stream connecting pipelines, which will in future transport Russian gas via Germany to the Netherlands and the UK.
In realizing these storage projects we are continuing to expand our position as one of the leading providers of storage capacities in Europe, Wingas chairman Dr Rainer Seele explained. Overall, Wingas is creating storage capacity in Europe for up to eight billion cubic meters of natural gas together with its partners.
Since the European Union is having to import increasing amounts of natural gas, the need for additional storage facilities will rise accordingly, Dr Seele continued. There is a growing interest on the European market in this form of usage because the European market requires stable structures for its natural gas supplies…Additional underground storage facilities are thus also forward-looking investments.
Moreover, in order to boost the growth opportunities in natural gas storage, Wingas has set up a gas storage unit, which brings together the company’s many years of expertise in marketing storage facilities and developing technical services.
