Russian gas giant is said to be flaring over 4 million cubic metres per day of gas, based on assessments of satellite images in July and August

Large scale flaring of natural gas near the Portovaya compressor station, first reported by witnesses at the end of July, has continued throughout August, provoking fresh concerns of potential impact on the local environment.

Satellite images of the area near the station were the subject of analysis by consultancy Rystad Energy, published by UK broadcaster BBC, revealing a large column of gas combustion in the southeastern corner of the Portovaya LNG facility.

The LNG facility is located six kilometres from the Portovaya compression station on a sparsely populated shore of the Finnish Bay, north-west of St Petersburg, and is more visible from the water rather than from the mainland.

The Portovaya compressor station is responsible for raising incoming gas pressure to the point that gas can flow across the Baltic Sea to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, without any additional boosting.

The compression station has been operating at just 20% capacity since the beginning of July, with Gazprom citing issues with the maintenance of Siemens Energy-made turbines that are driving compressors.

Gazprom said the compressor station will close between 31 August and 3 September because of turbine maintenance. It was also shut down for 10 days in July, interrupting gas flows to Europe.

Russian energy consultant Mikhail Krutikhin told Upstream that Gazprom is likely to be flaring the excess gas from the incoming pipeline to relieve any potential dangerous build-up of pressure of gas that would normally feed into the compression facility.

Krutikhin said that pressure in the pipeline preceding Portovaya has already been reduced, but the drop has not been sufficient to halt flaring.

Rystad Energy said satellite monitoring showed that the flaring at Portovaya LNG started on 11 July.

In a research note, Rystad said that exact flaring volumes levels are “hard to quantify but are believed to be at levels of around 4.34 million cubic meters per day. This equates to 1.6 billion cubic meters on an annualized basis and is equal to around 0.5% of the EU’s gas demand needs”.

Rystad noted that flaring began on the very same date when Gazprom started maintenance on Nord Stream 1 and continued despite the partial operations being resumed at the pipeline on 21 July.

It concluded that the flaring is “an environmental disaster with around 9,000 tonnes of CO2 being emitted daily”.

Though Gazprom has not commented on the cause of the flaring, some industry sources in Moscow questioned suggestions that the Russian gas giant is burning excess gas because of compression restrictions on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

Some of these sources have linked the flaring to the ongoing commissioning of the Portovaya LNG facility, which is set to produce 1.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, without explaining the potential cause of such flaring.

The construction of the Portovaya facility has been managed by Russian contractor Peton since 2016, but commissioning has been already pushed back several times.

The plant has limited storage capacity of 42,000 cubic metres and will pump LNG into a floating storage unit converted from what used to be the Exmar-owned LNG carrier Excel. The 2003-built vessel has storage capacity for 138,100 cbm and was sold by the Belgian company in 2017.

In 2019, Upstream’s sister publication Tradewinds reported that commodity trader Gunvor had chartered this vessel, now known as the Portovyy, to be moored at a loading jetty in the Finnish bay and serve the Portovaya LNG.

Peton has not responded to a request from Upstream to provide information about the status of the commissioning process for the Portovaya LNG.

According to Russian authorities, the Portovaya LNG was intended to provide alternative seaborne supplies of gas to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the event international sanctions halt pipeline gas supplies crossing the Baltic state of Latvia.

The floating storage and regasification vessel Marshall Vasilevsky is supposed to transport LNG from Portovaya LNG to Kaliningrad but marine traffic websites suggest the FSRU has been moored near Kaliningrad since the beginning of February.

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