E.ON, OMV, RWE study building LNG terminal in Croatia

E.ON AG, Total SA, OMV AG, RWE AG and other partners signed a contract to study building a liquefied natural gas terminal in Croatia. The feasibility study will examine the possibility of building a terminal with a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters of LNG, Vienna-based OMV said in an e-mail. The plant could be completed by the end of 2011. Gas providers are building pipelines and import terminals to meet demand in Europe, where domestic supplies of the fuel are insufficient to meet demand. E.ON, whose Ruhrgas unit is Germany's largest supplier, said on Aug. 29 that it has agreed to buy 400 billion cubic meters of the fuel from OAO Gazprom. “We hope that all these companies will be part of the consortium to build the terminal,” Thomas Huemer, a spokesman for OMV, said by telephone today. “This study is the first step for the project.” Terminals of the type being considered in the study usually cost about €1 billion ($1.28 billion), Huemer said. Exact costs will be determined in the study, he said. LNG is natural gas cooled to a liquid so it can be shipped by tanker and converted back into gas on arrival. Transgas, INA and Geoplin are also participating in the study. (Bloomberg)