In late March 2020, Grupa LOTOS, LOTOS Paliwa and Remontowa LNG Systems signed an agreement to build a pilot LNG station, to be sited at the LOTOS service station located in Gdańsk-Osowa on the ring road bypassing the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot metropolitan area (on the road to Gdynia). Its commercial operation is slated to start in mid-2021. Co-funded by the EU under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the project comprises the design, construction and pilot testing of the station.
“As we battle the coronavirus pandemic, we care to ensure continuity of the day-to-day operations of our companies. This improves our chances of swiftly returning to business as usual and gives us hope for quick economic recovery. Innovation will be a key element here,” commented Jacek Sasin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State Assets.
“We make and deliver our products to customers with no disruptions and support the emergency services in the battle against the coronavirus while working on new projects,” said Paweł Jan Majewski, President of the Grupa LOTOS Management Board. “This project is implemented in partnership with Remontowa LNG Systems and it will enable LOTOS Paliwa to expand its offering to include LNG and CNG as modern, alternative, economical, low-emission fuels designed primarily for heavy road transport. Projects of this type are an important direction for us.”
As its main function, the station will enable refueling of LNG and CNG vehicles. The cryogenic condenser will enable boil-off gas to be liquefied and re-injected into the tank container, helping the station to reduce methane emissions to zero during operation. Furthermore, automatic control and monitoring systems will enable single-person operation and remote servicing of the station. Its unique function will be maintaining the technical parameters of LNG stored in the intermodal cryogenic tank containers at safe levels for a long time in order to enable distribution of LNG to end consumers by any mode of transport.
“I am glad we are about to launch a solution designed by Polish engineers and made in Poland,” said Piotr Dowżenko, President of the Management Board of Remontowa LNG Systems. “By implementing this project, we are deploying several extremely demanding technologies, expanding our range of LNG solutions and entering the onshore market with technologies we have previously used in the offshore industry.”
The station will be operated by LOTOS Paliwa. Building the facility in the proposed location will contribute to developing transport infrastructure along a TEN-T route (Trans-European Transport Network). The project will help to create an LNG distribution system in Gdańsk, with its footprint extending to Gdynia (as a TEN-T urban node), the Gdańsk Province and beyond (no LNG fuel sources exist in Northern Poland today). Besides its function as a service station, the facility could be used in the future as a virtual LNG pipeline hub and serve as the key to modern LNG distribution in Poland and abroad.
Source: Grupa LOTOS
