February 16 (SeeNews) - The government of North Macedonia said it has started a process to reserve capacities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the floating LNG terminal in Greece's Alexandroupolis, which is currently under construction.
The investment will lead to the opening of a second route for LNG supplies to the country, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.
Currently, North Macedonia gets gas from Russia through the TurkStream gas pipeline through Bulgaria.
In 2021, North Macedonia's state-owned company National Energy Resources (NER) and electricity generation utility ESM signed a memorandum of cooperation to invest in the project for the construction of the LNG terminal and a gas-fired power plant in Alexandroupolis. North Macedonia plans to invest over 380 million euro ($432.2 million) in a 25% stake in the planned 800 MW power plant and 370 million euro in a 10% stake in the LNG terminal, former prime minister Zoran Zaev said last year.
The governments of North Macedonia and Greece in July also signed an agreement for the construction of a cross-border natural gas interconnector worth 100 million euro.
The LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis, which is expected to become operational in early 2023, is planned to comprise an LNG floating storage and regasification unit, which will be a new, independent energy gateway for the markets of Southeastern and Central Europe. The station will have an LNG storage capacity of 170,000 cubic meters and a natural gas supply capacity that will exceed 5.5 billion cubic meters per year.
The Southern Gas Corridor comprises the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP). Connecting with the TANAP at Greece's border with Turkey, TAP stretches across northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before reaching southern Italy's coast where it connects to the Italian natural gas network.
($ = 0.8791 euro)