Port of Rotterdam: Gate LNG throughput down 26 pct in 2016

LNG throughput volumes at the Dutch Gate terminal decreased 26.1 percent during 2016 as compared to the year ago, according to the data released by the Port of Rotterdam on Thursday.

Total LNG throughput reached 1.7 million mt last year, as compared to record 2.3 million mt in 2015.

The reason behind the drop in LNG volumes was that in 2016 “the global market saw less arbitrage relating to LNG prices,” the Port of Rotterdam said.

Dutch first LNG terminal received 1.04 million mt of the chilled fuel during the year, down 28.6 percent from 2015.

Gate’s exports of previously imported LNG also dropped 22.2 percent to 665,000 mt, the data showed.

Worth mentioning, the Gate LNG terminal, owned by Gasunie and Vopak, had been expanded during the year with the addition of a third jetty and new infrastructure for the loading of small LNG vessels.

The third jetty enables the loading of small volumes of LNG, from 1,000-cbm up to 20,000-cbm, with the potential for increase to 40,000-cbm in the long term.

Gate currently has a throughput capacity of 12 bcm per year and is equipped with three 180,000-cbm LNG tanks.

LNG World News Staff