Dutch oil storage company Vopak said on August 16 it and dominant Dutch gas company Gasunie had started a feasibility study on developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Rotterdam.
The receiving terminal is expected to be located in north-west section of the Maasvlakte harbour area in Rotterdam. Vopak, which operates a world-wide network of storage tanks for chemical and oil products, and Gasunie announced plans to develop and LNG terminal last April.
The Netherlands lies on the second biggest gas reserves in western Europe and Gasunie, owned by the government and oil giants Royal Dutch/Shell and ExxonMobil, is one of the continent's biggest gas exporters.
LNG is gas which has been super-cooled into liquid form for loading onto tankers. The United States and Europe increasingly are turning to imported LNG as their local gas reserves decline.
Several projects to import LNG to Europe are under way, while a string of import terminals is being developed in the United States. Analysts expect the United States to become the world's second largest LNG importer after Japan by 2010.
Rotterdam port, Europe's busiest, said last year it was considering building an LNG terminal with initial annual capacity of six billion cubic metres by 2009 and might invite Russian oil and gas companies to join the project.
Vopak also said last year it wanted to expand into the LNG storage market.
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