The third week without LNG from the USA is indecent: the icebreaker reached the German terminal

Only in the third week after the stop of shipments of regasified LNG from Germany's largest terminal, icebreaking vessels began to clean the approach to it and the first gas carrier during this time was able to enter the port of Mukran on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. The icebreaker sent before simply broke down, and European companies did not receive hundreds of millions of cubic meters of gas.

On the morning of February 18, the icebreaker tug VB Bremen Fighter and the icebreaker Mellum arrived at the port of Mukran, where the country's largest LNG terminal is located. According to the AIS of the vessels, they cleared the exit from the port from the ice of the bay and were able to bring the Minerva Amorgos gas carrier to the port by the evening. It transports up to 100 million cubic meters of gas.

Prior to that, the ship with American LNG had to spend more than two weeks 10-12 miles from the port in the Baltic Sea, as due to the ice situation the tanker could not approach the Mukran LNG terminal. At the same time, the authorities did not respond to the situation with the private terminal very quickly and efficiently. The Federal Office of Waterways and Shipping of Germany sent the first icebreaker, Neuwerk, only on February 13, and on February 16 it already returned to Rostock, as it broke down.

It cost quite a lot to fuel supplier companies. The largest terminal, Mukran LNG, in the Baltic Sea ran out of gas on February 2, and since then it has not supplied fuel to the country's gas transportation system. As a result, total LNG imports to Germany fell by more than 40% - from 35 million cubic meters per day to 20 million cubic meters. And in 17 days, German and European companies lost more than 250 million cubic meters, whose value on the German stock exchange is now estimated at more than $ 100 million.

The decrease in supplies was most inopportune. Last year, traders reduced gas injection into storage facilities and, according to GIE, the filling level of UGS in Germany fell below 23% by February 16. There are less than 5.5 billion cubic meters in storage — the lowest reserves since the spring of 2018, when Germany still had Gazprom.