BELGIAN-based gas carrier company Exmar has applied to MBZ, the Zeebrugge Port Authority, to build a discharging and ship-to-ship transfer LNG and high pressure natural gas terminal at the Belgian port.

At the moment, Belgium has only one single jetty to discharge LNG, at the LNG terminal in the Port of Zeebrugge.

The company says: “With the view of securing additional natural gas supply for the country, in an effort to increase the diversification of the supply sources for LNG in Europe and in order to speed up the liberalisation of the Belgian and European gas markets, Exmar wishes to build a new discharging and ship-to-ship transfer infrastructure in the Port of This infrastructure will be fully compatible with that already existing and will further strengthen the position Belgium commands as a supply and transit country for natural gas in Europe.”

Exmar says it will work closely with Ondernemingen Jan De Nul (dredging), Praxair, Jacobs Engineering, ERM and ECOLAS in the construction and development of the new infrastructure. The terminal will allow simultaneous berthing of two conventional LNG carriers or LNGRV’s (regasification vessels). The LNGRV’s are able to regasify the LNG on board and inject it directly into the gas transport grid. As an alternative, they can pump the LNG from the ship to storage tanks onshore. The terminal will also enable the transfer of LNG from a conventional LNG to an LNGRV.

Exmar says: “This precludes the storage of large quantities of LNG and, as a result, avoids the need to construct large LNG tank farms onshore. In addition, this technology offers an environmentally friendly, cost-efficient, economic and safe solution when bringing additional LNG volumes to the Belgian and European market.”

Similar infrastructures are already operational at Gulf Gateway offshore Louisiana,US, and Teesside GasPort in Teesport,UK, and has proven its reliability and flexibility.

Meanwhile Exmar has revealed weak first half figures with an operating profit of US$33.4m compared to US$60.6m for the first six months of 2006 (which included US$10.0m capital gain realised on the sale of vessels and US$11.0 million non-recurrent items).