A small orchard on the banks of the Elbe River in northern Germany, overgrown and circled by seagulls, holds the key to the country’s Russia-free energy future.
The orchard, close to the city of Stade, will soon be cleared to make way for a €1bn liquefied natural gas terminal, one of three planned that should help Germany cut its dependence on Russian gas.
“The location is perfect,” said Jörg Schmitz, senior LNG project director at chemicals group Dow Germany, gesturing to the wide sweep of the Elbe, the
North Sea to the west and the port of Hamburg, Germany’s largest, to the east.
If Schmitz’s vision is realised, Stade will become a hub in the global trade of LNG, gas that has been supercooled to minus 160C so it can be shipped around the world on tankers. “If it all goes to plan we’ll see about 100 landings a year here, up to Q-Max size,” he said, referring to the world’s biggest LNG carriers, each longer than three football pitches.
Stade is at the forefront of a revolution in German energy. Just days after
Russian troops streamed into Ukraine, chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans to radically reduce Germany’s reliance on Russian energy. LNG will be vital to the plan to reduce Russian natural gas imports from 55 per cent of the total to 10 per cent by the summer of 2024.
But the switch will be a challenge. Germany’s new dash for gas could clash with its commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2045. It might also struggle to source all the LNG it needs.
“The million dollar question is whether they’ll be able to find enough LNG,” said Frank Harris, an expert on the fuel at energy consultancy Wood
Mackenzie. “There’s relatively little new supply over the next two-three years.”