Russian liquefied gas arrives in Finland and an infrastructure is prepared to receive it

Media reports revealed that, in Finland, a Dutch tanker loaded with Russian liquefied gas has arrived at the Finnish port of Hamina.

Finland announced the completion of the construction of a liquefied gas tank in the port of Hamina, with a capacity of 30,000 cubic meters, to receive Russian gas.

The Finnish “Gazum” company acknowledged the arrival of Russian gas, despite Helsinki’s decision to refrain from importing energy resources from Russia, noting that Gazum intends to operate a liquefied gas terminal in the port of Hamina, starting next month, to receive Russian gas.

Last Saturday, the environmental group “Greenpeace”, which took a hard anti-Russian political stance after the military operation in Ukraine, said that its activists were “trying to prevent the Coral Energy tanker loaded with Russian liquefied natural gas from unloading its cargo in the Finnish port of Tornio,” revealing that the tanker “Finnish state-owned Gazum Corporation”.

The group said that “Gazum regularly imports part of its gas from the Russian company Gazprom and the Russian state-owned company Novatek, as well as Sweden,” stressing that “sometimes, the import is done directly, but recently it has become through a more complex arrangement as the transport of Gas first to other ships at sea”.

For its part, “Gazum” explained that “Currently, there are no restrictions on gas imports, neither in the European Union nor in other countries in which Gazum operates,” adding that “Gazum has a long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom”.

A week ago, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said, during a plenary session in the European Parliament, that “the European economy is going through a set of pressures as a consequence of high energy prices and the war in Ukraine,” and stressed that Helsinki “calls for support for European companies and citizens in the gas and electricity crises during the next winter”.

Her words come days after Finland’s government agreed to launch an emergency support package of 10 billion euros (about 10 billion dollars) to help utilities companies affected by fluctuations in energy markets.

On May 21, Russia’s Gazprom announced the “complete cessation of gas supplies to the Finnish energy company” Gazum, and the Finnish Ministry of Economy and Labor said that “the reason for stopping supplies lies in the fact that Finland didn’t agree to pay in rubles for the supply of gas via the pipeline”, and this led to a shortage of bread in the country and stopped many economic and industrial interests that depend on Russian gas.

Finland said it is counting on the Baltic Gas Pipeline between Finland and Estonia to import alternative gas from the Baltic States, and plans to provide liquefied natural gas through stations in Tornio and Pori in the north of the country, and through the station scheduled to be completed in the fall in Hamina in the east of the country.

On May 20, 2022, the Finnish company “Gas Aoy” signed a 10-year agreement with the US company “Excellarite” to lease a ship as a liquefied natural gas terminal, which it said “will play an important role in ensuring gas supplies for the Finnish industry,” and that it “is scheduled to be fully operational next winter, if the necessary infrastructure is completed”.