French Atlantic LNG shippers gain access to daily flow triggers at Montoir

2013-11-20

French energy regulator CRE said Tuesday the 123 TWh/year Atlantic Montoir de Bretagne LNG terminal can offer daily flow adjustments to shippers with immediate effect.

The move was designed to boost demand for the terminal over the winter months, a period in which subscriptions for France's three LNG terminals and inland gas storage sites have been particularly low.

GRTgaz, France's main gas grid operator, said earlier this month low subscription levels meant the system balance of the country's main gas grid remained short by 270 GWh/day to cover a severe cold snap this winter.

Until now, shippers at Montoir had only been able to submit flow allocations on a monthly basis, factoring in predicted changes in demand such as the typical weekend lull.

Under the new market mechanism, drawn up by terminal operator Elengy and now written into law, 500 GWh of the terminal's 2,400 GWh LNG storage capacity is to be set aside for the daily adjustment service, in a system similar to that in place at the Mediterranean 97 TWh/yr Fos Cavaou terminal, CRE said.

The Montoir terminal, France's only Atlantic LNG facility, has seen low usage rates cargoes have been sent to higher priced markets. The terminal was virtually inactive for three months over the summer.

In the case of high demand under the new system, storage will be allocated according to subscribed regasification levels.

Elengy also operates the Mediterranean 57 TWh/yr Fos Tonkin terminal but cannot implement the daily mechanism at that facility as there is not enough terminal storage capacity amid a planned outage of two reservoirs, CRE said.

The new service at Montoir is in addition to other plans being considered to promote the use of the terminal.

Elengy and GRTgaz have submitted separate plans to CRE to incentivize the use of the terminal while, at the same time, helping alleviate southbound congestion on the gas network from the GRTgaz Nord to GRTgaz Sud trading zones.

CRE has been keen to free up capacity from GRTgaz Nord to GRTgaz Sud due to large price premiums in the southern market and an increased use of the Montoir terminal would improve the availability of interruptible capacity between the trading zones, Elengy has said.

Source from : Platts

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