Poland’s state-owned gas company PGNiG is looking to boost the number of users of trucked liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the country.
PGNiG is in charge of all the LNG supplies coming to Poland’s import terminal in Świnoujście operated by Gaz-System’s unit Polskie LNG.
The company said in a statement on Friday that a mobile LNG metering station, designed by the company’s engineers, could “revolutionise” the small-scale LNG market in Poland.
The flow meter “accurately measures the required part of the LNG load from a tanker.”
According to PGNiG, the small-scale LNG market is currently only available to customers that are able to take the entire amount of the fuel transported by a truck. With this metering station, smaller consumers such as large farms or small production plants will be able to take only a part of a standard LNG truck load.
Currently, LNG is being transported by trucks to regasification stations, where it is regasified and then delivered to customers through the gas grid.
PGNiG says the device can be transported at short notice to any location in Poland, and the possibility of dividing a single load into several parts “can significantly increase the number of LNG users.”
According to PGNiG’s estimates, the size of the small-scale LNG market in Poland is now approximately 65,000 tonnes per year, but it could more than triple, to at least 200,000 tonnes, within the next ten years.
The company added it already unloaded a truck using its flow meter at the regasification station in Suwałki. It was the first unloading operation of this type in Poland, it said.
With the start of LNG measurements using mobile flow meters, a national system to monitor its metering and billing is now also being developed.
“The new validation stations must also undergo periodic checks. Poland’s and Europe’s first LNG reference station will be built on PGNiG infrastructure at the Odolanów Branch, with the support of the Polish Central Office of Measures,” it said.