Enagás announced at an event with marketers and regulatory authorities held today at its headquarters that, as of 6 March, it will begin an Open Season for logistics services at El Musel liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Gijón, and explained the next steps.
Thus, the process of contracting capacity to provide logistics services at the terminal begins, which is a milestone for the start of commercial operations. El Musel is part of the Government’s More Energy Security Plan and will play an important role in strengthening Europe’s security of energy supply.
The process will begin with a first non-binding phase in which trading companies will be able to express their interest in the logistics services offered by this infrastructure for LNG unloading, storage and loading operations, on an unregulated access basis. This will be followed by a binding phase in which marketers will bid for the capacity and the process will end with the allocation of long-term logistics services.
Under the regulated access regime, El Musel terminal will only offer the essential regasification service for the proper management of the terminal, as well as the tank loading service.
On 17 February, El Musel terminal received approval from the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) for its special economic regime as a logistics facility, a necessary step to begin the process of assigning logistics services.
The approval process for the terminal is in its final stage and only the final formalities are pending.
These procedures are the favourable Resolution of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge - in accordance with the provisions of the first additional provision of Royal Decree 335/2018, of 25 May -, the Act of Commissioning by the Industry and Energy Area of the Government Delegation in the Principality of Asturias and, in parallel, the municipal licence of the City Council of Gijón.
Enagás has invited Reganosa to participate in the process by virtue of the agreement announced this week whereby Reganosa becomes a 25% shareholder in the El Musel regasification terminal and Enagás acquires the entire transmission network hitherto owned by Reganosa.
The Gijón terminal could contribute up to 8 bcm of liquefied natural gas capacity per year to Europe’s security of energy supply. It will allow the berthing of vessels of between 50,000 and 266,000 m3, has two tanks of 150,000 m3 of LNG storage capacity, two tanker loading bays with a capacity to load a maximum of 9 GWh/d and a maximum emission capacity of 800,000 Nm3/h.
