Construction begins on controversial onshore LNG terminal near Hamburg

Construction of Germany's first onshore liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal has begun at Stade in the state of Lower Saxony, close to the northern port city Hamburg. Expected to be operational by 2027, the terminal is one out of three planned onshore terminals that are supposed to replace the already operating offshore facilities, which began supplying Germany with natural gas at the height of the energy crisis in late 2022, with supplies mostly coming from the United States. At the ceremony for the official start of construction works, the Czech Minister of Trade and Industry, Jozef Sikela, was also present, as some of the LNG that arrives in Stade will be transferred to Czechia. "Every cubic metre of gas we don't have to import from Russia is a step towards weakening Russia's influence in Europe," Sikela said in an article on Zeit Online. Lower Saxony's state president Stephan Weil (SPD) also welcomed the project getting under way. 

Environmental groups, however, are critical of developing long-term fossil fuel infrastructure, and Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) has launched legal action against the Stade project. In May, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) projected that even without Russian imports, Germany did not need to expand its LNG important infrastructure to meet gas demand over the coming decades. The Stade LPG terminal is being built by the Hanseatic Energy Hub, a Hamburg-based consortium of private investors that includes US chemicals company Dow, and is expected to cost around 1 billion euros, according to Die Zeit.