German State Gas Company Seeks Expansion Before Privatization

Securing Energy for Europe, or SEFE, is trying to build a stronger supply base before its privatization, planned to take place before 2030.

SEFE is the entity that the German government created after the nationalization of Gazprom’s German business soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

For most of that year, Europe’s biggest consumer of Russian gas struggled to secure enough supply and ended up with SEFE sealing a long-term LNG supply deal with another Russian company—Novatek—to be supplied from the Yamal LNG facility.

At the end of last year, SEFE also signed a big, long-term deal with Norway’s Equinor. Worth some $55 billion, the deal would see Equinor supply the German state firm with 10 billion cu m of natural gas annually over the period between 2024 and 2034. There is also an option for another five years of supply.

This year, another LNG deal followed, this time with Emirati Adnoc. This one is for 1 million tons of liquefied natural gas, delivered annually for a period of 15 years. LNG deliveries will be made from Adnoc’s Ruwais LNG project, which is currently under development in Al Ruwais Industrial City, Abu Dhabi.

The definitive LNG agreement is contingent upon a final investment decision on the project, including regulatory approvals, and the negotiation of a definitive sales and purchase agreement between the two companies, SEFE said at the time.

The Ruwais LNG project is expected to be the first LNG export facility in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to run on clean power, making it one of the lowest carbon intensity LNG plants in the world. This could have been a big factor in SEFE’s decision on that deal given the German government’s prioritization of climate change over everything else.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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