Kipoi

Ministry approves compressor station additions for TAP boost

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The energy ministry has approved a compressor station upgrade plan for Kipoi, northeastern Greece as part of a plan to boost the capacity of the TAP gas pipeline, facilitating the delivery of Caspian gas to destinations throughout southeastern, central and western Europe.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG, the TAP pipeline operator, has been granted a five-year license to expand the Kipoi compressor station facility through the installation of three new compressor stations, which will enable simultaneous operation of five gas compressors, with a sixth unit on standby.

The compressor station upgrade promises to offer an overall capacity of 90 MW, comprised of six 15-MW units.

Meanwhile, just days ago, gas grid operator DESFA launched a non-binding market test for the TAP gas pipeline’s increased capacity plan. Interested parties face an August 28 deadline to submit bids.

Brussels forwards new PCI list, to be finalized late this year

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The European Commission’s fifth PCI (Projects of Common Interest) list in the electricity and natural gas sectors, being forwarded for public consultation, features, for now, a number of project additions and removals, compared to the previous edition.

Market officials and state authorities will have the opportunity to offer their views and observations over the consultation procedure’s twelve-week period before the European Commission adopts a finalized version of the fifth PCI list towards the end of 2021, based on an existing Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) framework, focused on linking the energy infrastructure of EU countries.

PCI projects are entitled to EU funding support. Brussels authorities introduced selection criteria revisions in December, ascertaining, however, that the impact of all projects, especially on CO2 emissions, will be appraised when finalizing the PCI list’s fifth edition.

The provisional list includes a number of electricity and gas sector projects concerning Greece.

Electricity-sector projects involving Greece include: a Bulgarian-Greek grid interconnection, expected to be completed in 2023; an Egyptian-Greek-Libyan grid interconnection headed by Green Power 2020 and scheduled for delivery in 2025; as well as three Egypt-Greece interconnections, two of these featuring Kykladika Meltemia SA as project promoter and expected to be respectively completed in 2025 and 2028, and a third headed by Elica SA and scheduled for completion in 2028.

An energy storage project planned by Eunice for Ptolemaida, northern Greece, and scheduled for completion in 2022 is a new entry on the PCI list.

In the natural gas sector, the PCI list includes: the Alexandroupoli FSRU (2022); a subsea pipeline between Greece and Italy, known as the Poseidon Pipeline (2025); EastMed, a pipeline planned to carry natural gas from the east Mediterranean to European markets, via Crete (2025); a compressor station in Thessaloniki’s Nea Mesimvria area (2022); a metering and regulating station in Megalopoli, Peloponnese (2025); a compressor station in Abelia, in Greece’s mid-north (2023); a compressor station in Kipoi, northeastern Greece (2024); a pipeline link for the Alexandroupoli FSRU (2022); a TAP pipeline capacity increase (2025); and the development of an underground gas storage facility (UGS) in the almost depleted natural gas field of “South Kavala” in northern Greece (2023).

DEPA calls for RAE to prioritize Kipoi, Abelia compressor stations

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Gas utility DEPA has underlined the gas-supply security importance of two prospective compressor stations in Kipoi, northeastern Greece, and Abelia, in the mid-north, urging RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, to prioritize their development.

The two projects, on a RAE list of infrastructure projects for preventive action, are expected to significantly improve energy supply security in Greece over the mid and long-term by facilitating the transportation process of natural gas.

DEPA stressed the importance of the two compressor stations in a letter forwarded to RAE’s public consultation procedure on its preventive action plan.

The two compressor stations are vital for grid-connection and gas-flow purposes concerning the prospective Alexandroupoli FSRU and an underground gas storage facility (UGS) planned for development at an almost depleted offshore natural gas field in South Kavala, DEPA pointed out in its letter.

Also, the Abelia compressor station is needed to ensure hydraulic gas-flow sufficiency from north to south, via the TAP project, DEPA noted.

Both compressor station projects feature in gas grid operator DESFA’s ten-year development plan covering 2021 to 2030.

Gas imports up 17% in first four months, LNG at the forefront

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Gas imports for both large and small-scale consumers increased by 17 percent in the year’s first four-month period, defying unprecedented market conditions brought about by the pandemic, especially during March and April, the peak of the lockdown.

Gas imports totaled 21,393 GWh between January and April this year compared to 18,211 GWh during the equivalent period a year earlier, according to data provided by DESFA, the gas grid operator.

During the four-month period, gas imports at DESFA’s LNG terminal on the islet Revythoussa just off Athens rose to 11,679 GWh, a 45 percent increase compared to a year earlier. This terminal was the national gas grid’s biggest entry point.

Sidirokastro, at the Greek-Bulgarian border, followed with a pipeline-gas quantity of 7,952 GWh, an 8 percent drop compared to the equivalent four-month period a year earlier. Even so, Sidirokastro remains an important entry point.

The country’s other pipeline-gas entry point, Kipoi, in the Evros region, northeastern Greece, registered a 13 percent year-on-year increase of natural gas imports to reach 1,762 GWh.

The aforementioned data reconfirms a market overturn that emerged last year to show LNG imports exceed incoming pipeline gas amounts via the grid’s Sidirokastro and Kipoi entry points.

This trend highlights the fact that major Greek energy market players have been able to secure competitively priced LNG and favorable delivery solutions.