Crises can also be accelerators, for example for the use of liquid gas.

Because Germany wants to become independent of raw material supplies from Russia, it should now go very quickly with the so-called liquefied natural gas (LNG).

On Thursday, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to lay the foundation stone for Germany's first liquid gas terminal in Wilhelmshaven together with Lower Saxony's Energy Minister Olaf Lies (SPD).

To be more precise: From a ship, the two will follow how a first pillar for the new pier is rammed into the seabed in the Jade off Hooksiel.

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Katja Gelinsky

Business correspondent in Berlin

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Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The new facility will be operated by the energy company Uniper, which has also found the necessary mobile terminal, a so-called “Floating Storage and Regasification Unit” (FSRU).

This special ship called "Esperanza" is to be connected in the summer, and LNG imports could start at the end of the year.

The "Esperanza" is chartered by the federal government, which is providing almost three billion euros for a total of four such FSRUs.

The capacity in Wilhelmshaven is 9 billion cubic meters per year, which is a tenth of the total German gas requirement or a fifth of what previously came from Russia.

RWE is planning a terminal in Brunsbüttel, and further locations in Stade, Hamburg-Moorburg and Eemshaven in Holland are under discussion.

Capacity expansion required

In autumn 2023, another FSRU project over 9 billion cubic meters could go into operation in Wilhelmshaven, under the aegis of the Shell and BP subsidiary Nord-West Oelleitung.

The gas from the LNG terminal is to flow into the existing German gas network near the Etzel cavern field, 30 kilometers away – one of the largest underground storage facilities in Europe.

For this purpose, the network operator Open Grid Europe (OGE) is building a connection line by the end of 2022.

The pipes have already been ordered and laying should begin in August.

Gas from Wilhelmshaven would have to be fed into a pipeline that already brings gas from Norway and is heavily used.

That requires capacity expansions in the downstream network, it said.

It is important to all those involved that the infrastructure can later also be used for green energy sources, such as hydrogen, because natural gas is only considered an interim solution towards a non-fossil era.

In Wilhelmshaven, expansion into an “energy hub” with unloading and handling options for green ammonia is planned by 2025.

It will either be transported by rail or converted back into hydrogen on site.

Uniper is also planning an electrolysis plant to produce green hydrogen using wind power.

The current hasty procedure in Wilhelmshaven is already the second attempt.

A year and a half ago, Uniper's first attempt failed because LNG was too expensive compared to Russian pipeline gas.

But there were also environmental concerns, such as a biotope for the bristle worm.

After the failure, Uniper switched to the LNG terminal in Rotterdam and secured import capacity there.

By October 2024, it will increase to four billion cubic meters per year, making Uniper the largest user of the terminal.

The company has chartered seven ships for LNG transport on a long- and medium-term basis.

Uniper had already traded more than 300 shiploads of LNG in the year, making it one of the most important players in this market.

The planning and approval procedures should go faster this time, and objections should be cleared up more quickly.

That is the task of an LNG acceleration law, the draft of which Habeck has now submitted to departmental coordination with the other ministries.

In accordance with a European directive, the paper provides, among other things, for the environmental impact assessment to be dispensed with.

An "environmental blind flight"

The draft states: "The aim of the law is to go through all approval and approval procedures as well as the award of public contracts and concessions considerably faster than is possible under the current legal situation." The duration of public participation in all procedures is reduced to two Weeks are limited, and there should only be one legal instance, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.

Environmental groups fear an "environmental blind flight" in the "extremely sensitive ecosystems of the North Sea and Wadden Sea" if the environmental impact assessment is dropped.

According to the Bonn law professor Wolfgang Durner, this step in particular would have the potential to accelerate the FSRU projects.

On the other hand, Durner rates the plans to legislate that projects for the use of liquid gas are "in the overriding public interest and in the interest of public safety" as an "air number".

"This is based on the erroneous notion that the legal problems of environmentally relevant projects can be solved by weighing up decisions," he told the FAZ.

He was not aware of any energy transition project that had failed in the weighing process.

If anything, inadequate investigations into the environmental impact have been criticized.