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EU approves subsidies totalling €74 million to aid in LNG development
The Port of Rotterdam has received a major boost in its bid to become an LNG hub with the news that it has been granted approval for two subsidies by the European Union.
The subsidies include €40 million for LNG infrastructure in the Rhine-Main-Danube area and a further €34 million to aid in the continued development of the LNG breakbulk terminals both in Rotterdam and in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Together, the two projects will create a logistics chain for LNG on the continent, Europe’s first, where the benefits will be felt across the chain. The LNG Masterplan for the Rhine-Main-Danube corridor for example includes no fewer than 33 partners including the ports of Antwerp, Strasbourg, Mannheim and a host of private companies.
EU funding for the breakbulk terminals relates to a joint venture between the ports of Gothenburg and Rotterdam, which will soon be capable of supplying LNG to the bunker market in Europe’s northwest.
The Port Authority of Rotterdam wants to turn the port into the most sustainable of its kind and sees the development of LNG bunkering as integral to its objective. Plans are already in place in Rotterdam to fully develop the market for LNG as a fuel and to open an LNG hub in the port before the end of 2015.
