Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz Ukrayiny said June 13 it had entered into a preliminary agreement with Canada’s Symbio Infrastructure to import LNG and green hydrogen from the latter’s planned Canadian export facility.
Naftogaz said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Symbio — which is developing a 10.5 million mt/year LNG export facility in Quebec — in Washington earlier this month.
“This agreement is an important milestone on Ukraine’s path of transitioning to diverse supplies of energy from around the globe,” Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said in the June 13 statement.
“Opportunities for procuring reliable, responsibly produced long-term energy supply from allies like Canada –- and from Symbio’s facilities –- by 2027 is critical to our energy security,” he said.
Under the MOU, the two parties agreed that LNG and liquid hydrogen would be delivered to an import terminal in a mutually agreed European transit country.
Ukraine has no LNG import infrastructure of its own, but can access regasifed LNG via Poland as well as pipeline imports from Europe to meet its domestic needs.
Ukraine produces some 20 /year of gas domestically, though output is expected to fall in 2022 due to the Russian invasion that started in February.
Symbio, through its subsidiary GNL Quebec, is developing Energie Saguenay, which it said would be able to export 10.5 million mt/year of clean LNG to Europe from 2027.
It said it could export LNG to Europe “at competitive prices” due to the short shipping distance.
European gas prices remain at sustained highs, triggered first last autumn by Russian supply constraints and concerns over storage, followed by a surge in prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The TTF front-month contract was last assessed on June 10 at /MWh, still 195% higher year on year, according to Platts price assessments by S&P Global Commodity Insights.
