Environmental assistance: preliminary work for the Rügen LNG terminals

Stralsund/Schwerin

Despite the veto of the Premier of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Manuela Schwezig (SPD) According to the German Environmental Assistance, preliminary work for additional LNG terminals east of Rügen appears to have begun. Vessel movements in the respective offshore area indicated that the garbage dredger had come into operation and that test drilling could also be carried out. “The pattern repeats itself. This is also how the North Sea Terminal off Wilhelmshaven was built,” said Konstantin Zerger, Head of Energy and Climate Protection at Deutsche Umwelthilfe.

During the day, the movements of the drilling vessel “Swarog” on the construction platform “JB119” off the southeastern tip of Rügen were also recorded with photographs. As a precaution, environmental assistance lodged an objection with the Stralsund mining authority, but had not received any response by evening. “Any dredging work at present takes place during the herring spawning season and the migratory period of the birds,” Zerger noted. From a nature conservation and legal point of view, approval of an early start of construction or even just preparatory work can be excluded.

State Environment Minister Til Backhaus (SPD) also agreed. The approval process is ongoing, Backhaus said in the evening, and the deadline for objections to the project only ended on Friday. Early measures are unknown to him and are not indicated. Like Schwesig, Backhaus has also expressed concerns about the planned location of two more liquid gas plants that energy company RWE wants to build on behalf of the federal government just a few kilometers from the seaside resorts of Binz and Sellin. Local politicians and tourist associations are fiercely against it. RWE could not be reached for comment that evening.

Environmental organizations see no need for more stations

It was only on Friday that Prime Minister Schwezig reiterated her criticism of the federal government’s previous plans for two LNG terminals off Rügen and called for alternatives. “For example, to go out so far that it doesn’t bother anyone at all – then maybe you build a longer line,” Schwezig said on NDR TV. But the federal government must first answer the question of whether additional stations off Rügen are still necessary.

Environmental groups Bund, Naboo and the World Wide Fund for Nature have already made it clear that they see no need for more LNG terminals off the coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They warned that the stations would be built before Rügen, an additional gas pipeline linked through Greifswalder Bodden and the sea routes across the Baltic Sea. Both construction and many years of operation threaten sensitive and protected habitats.

According to current plans, two floating LNG terminals will be installed in the Baltic Sea off Sellin. The liquid gas carried by the tankers will be gasified there and transported via pipeline to Lubmin on the mainland. Lubmin, the former landing point for Russian natural gas from the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline, is already connected to the European distribution network. Deutsche Regas has been operating the LNG terminal there since mid-January.

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