Twelve years have passed since the construction of the El Musel regasification plant, owned at that time by Enagás, was completed in Gijón. This facility was hibernated for a decade due to various regulatory and judicial changes until, in 2018, the processing of the plant was reestablished.
From that moment on, Enagas starts the entire procedure to obtain the relevant authorizations for its definitive start-up and its use as a logistics plant, finally entering into commercial operation on July 28, 2023which makes it the sseventh operational regasification plant in Spain. Its implementation is part of the Government’s More Energy Security Plan.
At the end of July of last year, it was awarded to Endesa logistics services after successfully completing the capacity allocation process (Open Season) carried out by Enagás between March and June of that year. In mid-August, the terminal receives the Gaslog Warsaw, the first commercial LNG ship, with a capacity of 180,000 m3after having carried out the necessary final technical tests before the commercial start-up of the plant, which consisted of receiving two ships – the Cool Racer and the Dorado LNG – with a capacity of 174,000 m3 each.
In September 2023, the agreement between Enagás and Reganosa to create a strategic energy hub in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. As part of this alliance, Reganosa becomes a shareholder in the plant of El Musel regasification (75% Enagás and 25% Reganosa), which is renamed Musel E-Hubreinforcing its role as a key infrastructure for guaranteeing energy supply and decarbonization.
In statements to elEconomista.es, Antonio Manzano, CEO of Musel E-Hub, notes that “in the 14 months since its launch, Musel E-Hub has successfully fulfilled its mission of cContribute to the security of energy supply in Spain and Europe through its operations as a terminal for LNG logistics use. With a strategic locationin a node where two of the main corridors of the future hydrogen transportation network will converge, the terminal will also play a key role in the deployment of the value chain of new decarbonized molecules such as renewable hydrogen, bioLNG, methanol or projects linked to sustainable CO2 managementwhich will allow us to contribute to progress in the challenges of decarbonization”.
More than 1 million tons of LNG in one year
Musel E-Hub is a terminal that allows the reception of liquefied gas from any country in the world and offers logistics services for unloading, storage and loading operations of LNG on ships. Additionally, it has the capacity to load tanker trucks and ships with liquefied gas. for re-export or use as maritime fuel.
The Gijón plant, which It employs more than fifty people directly and another 100 indirectly, it could provide up to 8 bcm of LNG capacity per year. to the security of European energy supply. It has a pontoon that allows the docking of ships from 65,000 to 266,000 m3. (QMAX Class). The jetty (floating dock) has 4 arms that allow LNG to be unloaded to the terminal at a maximum capacity of 18,000 m3/h. Likewise, it has two ship access walkways both at the bow and at the stern.
The El Musel terminal It has two ‘full containment’ type LNG storage tanks, with a nominal capacity of 150,000 m3 of LNG each.. It has three primary pumps per tank with a unit capacity of 400 m3/h and one ship refueling pump per tank with a unit capacity of 2,000 m3/h of LNG, with which Musel E-Hub can reload ships with a total capacity of up to 6,000 m3/h, which positions it as the terminal with the greatest capacity for recharging ships in the Spanish gas system and one of the first on the continent.
The terminal It also has a station with two tanker loading stations with capacity for 30 tankers per day. (15 at each point) and charge a maximum of 9 GWh/d. Likewise, there is a reserve charging point for future expansion. In addition, it has a maximum installed emission capacity of 800,000 Nm3/h of NG (1,330 m3/h of LNG), through five secondary pumps, four Open Rack type seawater vaporizers (ORV), a reliquefier and three Boil Off Gas (BOG) compressors, which give the terminal a great BOG recovery capacity, providing reliability and operational flexibility.
From the end of July 2023 and until September 30, 2024, sA total of 21 operations have been carried out in the terminal. Specifically, they have carried out 16 LNG discharges coming from the USA, which have represented a total of 2,453,494 m3, 1,055,003 tons and 16,266 GWh of energy, and which are equivalent to 148% of the natural gas demand in Asturias in said period.
Likewise, they have been executed five LNG loads for 248,651 m3, 106,920 tons and 1,649 GWh of energy, which represent 15% of the refills carried out in the 7 Spanish LNG plants. The first loading was carried out on the Attalos ship on April 17.
On the other hand, 2,063 tankers have been loaded for a total of 91,223 m3 of LNG, with 18 different destinationsmainly focused on supplying buyers from Asturias (50%), León (19%), Zamora (15%), France (5%), Álava (4%) and Navarra (4%).
Multimodal and multimolecule model
LNG terminals will continue to contribute in an essential way to the security of energy supply, and their future involves the coexistence of large-scale LNG logistics services with a smaller-scale model linked to new energy vectors such as renewable hydrogen, BioLNG, or e-Fuels. Along these lines, the Musel E-Hub terminal, which It occupies an area of about 23 hectaresit will be key to integrating renewable hydrogen production in the area with future hydrogen corridors, as well as its adaptation as a multimolecule plant to store and manage climate-neutral molecules, such as green hydrogen and its derivatives..
With the aim of advancing this process, the University of Oviedo and Enagás signed a business collaboration agreement launched by the Chair of Development of Sustainable Energy Vectorswhich will allow technical-economic studies to be carried out to adapt the Musel E-Hub LNG terminal as a multimolecule plant (e-terminal). The Chair will develop a feasibility study of new sustainable energy vectors, in the context of the energy transition, as well as the selection of the best future alternatives for the Musel E-Hub plant, such as renewable hydrogen or the transport and storage of CO2, among others.
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