German LNG terminals: private versus state operatorship

February was marked by at least two very exciting developments. The discussion about refilling the storage facilities next summer intensified. The information event organised by THE during E-World also contributed to this. THE presented the filling instrument at the event but also made it abundantly clear that it is not the market area manager who decides on the use of the instrument. Not only in Germany have politicians, but above all civil servants in the ministries, realised that the responsibility lies with them. However, there is a growing perception that traders are taking speculative positions in anticipation of government action and are thus responsible for the strong negative Winter 25 - Summer 25 price spread. It is worth reading the article by Phillip Steinberg on LinkedIn. Mr Steinberg is the head of department responsible for these topics at the German Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK). Politicians and senior bureaucrats are more likely to try to stop speculation by weakening filling level requirements than to take government measures to support storage filling. The fact is, however, that storage capacity is currently not being sold and marketing efforts are unsuccessful.

The second topic is the cancellation of the charter contract with the federal government for the FSRU Energos Power by Deutsche Regas. You can read all the details in the Topic of the Month of this edition. It was almost absurd, however, when the operator's management unexpectedly accused the state-owned terminal operator DET of unfair market behaviour during a press trip to Mukran with a handful of journalists. The Future of the Gas and Hydrogen Industry, an industry association, had organised the trip, and representatives of Gascade and Hoegh were also present. None of this was coordinated between the parties involved. But it was, of course, exciting to see how the conflict between the state and the private LNG terminal operator became transparent. The issue has many facets.

Dr. Heiko Lohmann
Freelancer

E-Mail +49 30 8824005

Topic of the month: German LNG terminals: Private versus state operatorship

The dispute between the federal government and the operator of the Deutsche Ostsee terminal, Deutsche Regas, has been smouldering for months. This dispute became public at the end of January. The culmination point so far was the extraordinary termination of the sub-charter agreement between the federal government and Deutsche Regas for the FSRU Energos Power on 7 February 2025. The background to this dispute is outlined below, as far as it is accessible to me from publicly available information and informal discussions.

1.1 The history

In June 2022, Ingo Wagner and Stephan Knabe went public with their project for an LNG terminal in Lubmin (energate Gasmarkt 08+09/22). Knabe runs a tax consultancy in Potsdam, which he claims is the largest in Brandenburg. But he is also an entrepreneur. His Dr Knabe Holding is probably involved in various sectors with minority shareholdings. Mr Wagner says he has managed investment funds for many years and has also invested in natural gas infrastructure companies. The two are neighbours in Potsdam – Mr Wagner has a property there but does not live there permanently - and were probably already thinking about a joint hydrogen project in 2016. Both are enterprising and in 2022 an LNG project sounded like a good idea. But the two also emphasise that the desire to help (East) Germany to secure its gas supply has always been part of their motivation. Messrs Wagner and Knabe's ambition was to be faster and cheaper than the federal government in realising the LNG projects and thus also to demonstrate "private beats state" (the economist in me, who did his Ph.D. in Freiburg the capital of economic liberalism in Germany, is of course delighted).