The technology company The Linde Group has been commissioned by Norwegian-based Skangass to build a mid-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at the west coast of Sweden, in Lysekil, 100 kilometres north of Gothenburg.

The corresponding engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract is worth around €44 million. The works include the integration of the cryogenic tank structures to be erected by a third party. The new LNG terminal is planned to start operations in spring 2014 and will supply natural gas to the nearby Preem refinery as well as LNG for industrial and transportation applications.

The new terminal will have a storage capacity of 30,000 cubic metres (m³) of LNG, compared to 20,000 m³ at Nynäshamn, and will include a truck filling station. Linde Engineering has performed the basic engineering and will support with the procurement of rotating equipment, commis-sioning and start-up. LNG for both terminals - Nynäshamn and Lysekil - comes from the mid-scale LNG plant at Risavika near Stavanger, Norway. This plant - also built for Skangass by Linde - started operations in 2010.

Nearby Gothenburg is one of Sweden's key industrial areas and northern Europe's largest port of export. It is located in a so-called "Emission Control Area" (ECA), where stricter sulphur emission limits will become applicable in January 2015. LNG offers a reliable and economical solution to a wide range of applications and will help to comply with the upcoming regulations.

Only in October the newly founded joint venture company Bomin Linde LNG (BLLNG) announced to start planning a small-scale LNG terminal in Hamburg - another port that will be subject to stricter emission limits from 2015 on. BLLNG is a joint venture of Marquard & Bahls subsidiary Bomin, a leading provider of marine fuels, and Linde.