Croatia: Investors from Qatar is the ideal partner for the gas terminal on Krk island

Published on 24. December 2014., SEE Energy News

The collapse of the South Stream project has strongly echoed in Croatia, with a noticeable touch of malice because our inability for involvement in this project has not proved fatal.

The accompanying analysis of Croatia immediately declared the new energy center in this part of Europe, and even a shovel has not been driven into the ground in order to realize projects that there are only on paper for years.

The backbone of the theory of Croatia as an energy force rests on the LNG terminal on Krk, which is ‘built’ for more than 20 years. Here, also Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Zlatko Komadina warned on Tuesday that the state should have already resolved the issue of land for the construction of an LNG terminal on the island, and it is located on the area of DinaPetrokemija. Regardless of the fact that the European Union and the United States supported the construction of the project, nothing guarantees us that this time will be different.

Igor Dekanic, professor at the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering in Zagreb, says that all major energy projects are done regardless economic, but also geopolitical logic.

– There is no economic justification, but also geopolitical for the LNG terminal on the island of Krk, now when the construction of the South Stream project is canceled, said Dekanic.

Will we take this opportunity or not, that is another story.

– We have not managed to exploit itso far, but for example Hungarians and Poles did it, Dekanic explains, adding that 20 years after us the Poles started to mention the LNG and today they have built the terminal section in Svinjousce and realized the first quantity of LNG.

Italy has two terminals, Greece one, Spain six – Europe has been supplied in this way for 30 years.

– LNG gas source is not only for Croatia, but for the whole of Eastern Europe, and that means also for the supply diversification because it would not have to do with the Russian gas, emphasizes Dekanic. Diversification is especially important because the European Union wants to relieve dependence on only one direction of supply, namely Russian gas. The project is in the stage of preparation of technical and project documentation, and the nit should start looking for investors.

Dekanic says that we should make a consortium of investors, because we share the risk of the investment. It should also provide gas suppliers. In his opinion, Qatar, with who has already been established contact, might be interested because it would have LNG surplus under the current situation.

Davor Škrlec, euro representative of OraH, but also the professor from the Department for the high voltage and energy from the Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, says that we have missed our chance a few years ago, because if we had started the implementation of the LNG terminal on the island, today we would already have had a secure gas market. Now, when it became a project of common interest in the European Union, it is necessary to find long-term partners who would buy this gas. Potentially it comes to the countries of Central Europe dependent on Russian gas, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Austria. The idea is, he noted, that the LNG in Poland be connected with those on the island by the pipeline.

Skrlec says that a colleague Bernard Luka Baraka, who works for Katargas, and previously worked on the implementation of the LNG project, nicely explained that at a meeting on this topic in April this year.

– In short, we should find a partner who could provide transportation services, gas, and he would be involved in the procurement and he would enter the market and the electricity supply market. This is a challenging project, but it should be managed wisely and can be implemented within three to four years, concluded Skrlec.