Final construction phase of LNG mooring quay begins near Paldiski

TALLINN – Piling work at the mooring quay under construction near the northwestern town of Paldiski to create liquefied natural gas (LNG) reception capability for  Estonia has been completed, and on Friday the extension of the platform of the mooring quay will be handed over to the state-owned system operator Elering.

In the final phase of the large-scale works, the ship mooring pilings, or dolphins, will be built.

"All of the 133 monopiles needed to build the platform and the dolphins have now been rammed deep into the blue clay. Now that the solid foundation has been completed and the major risks associated with seabed geology and the special piling technology are past us, and it's first and foremost weathering the winds and waves that remains, we can once again confirm that the construction part of the port will be completed on time by the end of October," said Marti Haal, chairman of the management board of Alexela.

The LNG terminal in Paldiski will consist of three parts -- a port, a pipeline connection of Elering with the Balticconnector pipeline and an LNG vessel. Investment and energy companies Alexela and Infortar, which started preparations for the work immediately after the start of the war in Ukraine, are responsible for the completion of the quay and port facilities.

The companies handed over the main structure of the mooring quay of Pakrineeme Port to Elering for the performance of gas-related works ahead of schedule at the end of August.

"The 200 square meter extension of the platform will be completed today, ten days ahead of schedule," Haal said.  

In the spring, Estonia and Finland agreed that the LNG vessel will be berthed first at the reception site that is completed first.

"Alexela and Infortar, members of the design team, builders, logisticians, more than two hundred people in total, have worked for this promise and for the security of supply of Estonia and the region in general throughout the last half-year without a breather," Haal said.

At the end of August, industry news portal LNGPrime reported that Exemplar, a 150,900-cubic-meter capacity floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) of US company Excelerate Energy, was heading towards Europe after completing its winter supply contract in Argentina. 

Exemplar will serve Finland, Estonia and the other Baltic states under a 10-year charter deal the US LNG firm signed with Finland's Gasgrid.

At present, the vessel is docked in a dry dock in Spain to prepare it for work in winter conditions.

The rental costs of the vessel are estimated at 460 million euros over the 10-year period, plus variable costs depending on the amount of gas handled.