GSK Stockmann has been advising Niedersachsen Ports GmbH & Co. KG (NPorts) on the financing and provision of the new jetty for liquefied gases at the sea port in Stade. The project has been financed by a combination of funds from the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Lower Saxony as well as a loan from Nord/LB.

NPorts officially began construction of the jetty for liquefied gases (project name: AVG Stade) at the sea port in Stade at the start of the year with the first pile driven on 18 January 2023. A good 300 days later, on 16 December 2023, the structure with an investment volume of 300 million euros was handed over to its first user, the federally owned Deutsche Energy Terminal GmbH (DET). DET will use the jetty to operate the “Transgas Force” floating storage and regasification unit (FSGU) chartered by the federal government from the Greek shipping company Dynagas. Operations for the regasification of LNG (liquefied natural gas) will commence in the coming weeks. At the same time, Hanseatic Energy Hub GmbH is preparing to build a land terminal in the immediate vicinity of AVG Stade, which will be able to accommodate 13.3 bcm of liquefied natural gas, as well as green gases in the future.

By handing over AVG Stade on schedule, NPorts has successfully completed what is currently Germany’s largest port infrastructure project in record time and thus made another important contribution to securing Germany’s energy supply, building on its success constructing Germany’s first LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven. NPorts was able to hand over the port infrastructure for this earlier project to companies in the Uniper SE group in December 2022 after ten months of construction.

A GSK Stockmann team led by Arne Gniechwitz and Oliver Koos advised NPorts on usage agreements, loan financing and the partial public financing of AVG Stade.