Ports play a central role in the plans for Europe's future energy supply.

That was the case even before Russia invaded Ukraine.

After all, a large part of the green hydrogen that the EU needs to achieve its climate goals is to be transported to the EU by ship.

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, however, the ports have been used for a completely different purpose: to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas.

The EU Commission wants to replace 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas, a third of all Russian imports, this year with additional imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) - and this requires terminals throughout Europe.

Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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The new port of Bruges-Antwerp, which has just emerged from the merger of the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge, plays a key role in this.

15 percent of LNG imports into the EU are currently handled through the port of Zeebrugge.

So far, Germany has also been largely supplied with LNG from there.

The system has been running at the limit of its capacity for weeks.

However, the port's CEO, Jacques Vandermeiren, is skeptical that investing in the construction of new LNG capacity is worthwhile - and this is not only due to Germany's investments in its own LNG terminals.

The space is there, right next to the existing LNG terminal in Zeebrugge.

But: “Why should I build new LNG terminals that will be obsolete in a decade or two?” he says in an interview with the FAZ, no matter how much dependence on Russia must be reduced.

Ultimately, the investment has not paid off, at least so far.

Accordingly, at least at the moment, there are no concrete plans on the part of the operator Fluxys.

Vandermeiren does not share the European Commission's argument that investing in new terminals is definitely worthwhile because they can later be used to import green hydrogen.

"Technically, it's not that simple, it won't work without additional investments," he emphasizes.

Vandermeiren knows what he's talking about.

Before becoming head of the Port of Antwerp in 2016, he worked in the energy sector for more than two decades.

Most recently, he was CEO of the Belgian network operator Elia, which also owns the German network operator 50 Hertz.

Fork, Use and Storage

Vandermeiren is instead focusing on two other business areas related to the Commission's Green Deal: importing green hydrogen and exporting liquefied carbon dioxide.

The EU needs both to achieve its ambitious climate targets for 2050.

"That's so far away, but we have to invest now," he says.

The port itself should play a pioneering role.

Its emissions are set to halve by 2030.

This is anything but trivial.

The port accounts for 10 percent of Belgium's emissions.

The second largest chemicals cluster in the world, which includes BASF , Air Liquide , Exxon Mobil , Total , Borealis and Ineos, also contributes to this.

Up to 7 million tons of CO2 are to be saved by 2027.