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Russia - France
equivalent to the gas energy
consumption of the Dunkirk urban
area if were necessary to reheat sea-
water for this. This enables savings
of four hundred and sixty-five thou-
sand tonnes of CO2 a year.
Does the sales aspect also play a key
role in competitive differentiation?
The gas market is worldwide in its
LNG form and European in its
gaseous form, which leads to many
variations in prices every day. Our
customers can modify their flow rates
of gas in the network up to one hour
before sending it, which gives them
real flexibility. This possibility, which
most LNG terminals in Europe do not
offer, enables customers to make
arbitrages to optimize the value crea-
tion of their gas and LNG portfolios.
When this flexibility is linked to our
possibility to reload LNG on ships, it is
thens the diversification of supply in
North-West Europe. Customers can
all transport gas at the same time as
long as they comply with the rules
that are defined in their contracts.
Concerning its tariffs, the Dunkirk
LNG terminal is the only one in France
that is exempt from regulation, which
means that it is free to negotiate with
customers without any obligation of
publication. This total exemption of
regulated access of third parties has
been granted by the French Energy
Regulation Commission (CRE) for a
period of twenty years. It is necessary
to know that the value of such a facili-
ty is in its long-term contracts, with
durations of over twenty years. Today,
Dunkirk LNG has two customers, EDF
and Total, which represent ten billion
cubic metres a year out of the thirteen
billion that are available. Therefore,
three billion cubic metres are still
Do these projects show that the LNG
market is growing fast?
In 2017, worldwide LNG production
increased by more than ten percent
in line with expectations, boosting
the interest of new countries in this
energy.
This increase is due to the start-up of
production units in the United States,
Australia and the Arctic (Russia) and
also in Indonesia.
At the end of 2017, the LNG market
faced a decoupling of prices between
Europe and Asia. The price gap
between Asia and Europe, which for
had narrowed a while, has once more
become large enough to lead to an
increase in demand for reloading
ships in the North-West of Europe,
mainly in France, the Netherlands
and Great Britain, with the aim of
unloading the LNG in Asia. To improve
this type of service, we are currently
carrying out work to be able to offer a
rapid ship reloading service. By the
end of the year, it will enable us to
increase the flow to eight thousand
cubic metres per hour and reduce
ship turnaround time to twenty four
hours, instead of forty eight hours
today.
Do you have a role to play in the
Arctic LNG project in Russia?
2018 was also marked by the arrival
of LNG from Siberia at the Dunkirk
LNG terminal. Ice-breaking LNG
carriers are unloaded there before
their cargo is injected into the French
or Belgian transport networks or
reloaded on ‘conventional’ ships to be
sent to other marketplaces, especially
to Asia. The optimization of the fleet
of ice-breaking LNG carriers is crucial
for the economy of this project and
for our customers.
The Arctic LNG 2 project, a supple-
mentary LNG production unit that is
under study by Novatek and its partners,
could mean new opportunities for
Dunkirk LNG. Our terminal has the
advantage of still having enough
room to develop a new jetty at a rea-
sonable cost if it is required, which
could be a further asset to us.
a real asset for the portfolio manage-
ment of our customers.
Furthermore, our customers can
make nominations on both the French
and Belgian networks, which streng-
available. Since the facility was com-
missioned on 1 January 2017, twenty
three ships have docked and 100 % of
the expected service was provided to
our customers.
© Happy Day - Dunkerque LNG
Dunkerque LNG
Press contact: Lucie ADAMCZAK -
