BRUNSBÜTTEL (dpa-AFX) - Germany now receives liquefied natural gas (LNG) via three floating terminals. After Wilhelmshaven and Lubmin, gas was also fed into the long-distance pipeline network for the first time on Wednesday in Brunsbüttel, Schleswig-Holstein, at the mouth of the Elbe River, with the help of a special ship. It had previously been brought there by an LNG tanker. Since Wednesday, the regasified LNG has been flowing into SH Netz's network, the company announced on Thursday. Initially, a kind of trial operation has begun in Brunsbüttel. "In April, the facility will then go into regular operation," energy company RWE, the terminal operator, announced.

Among other things, Germany is relying on LNG (liquefied natural gas) to replace Russian gas supplies. It is rapidly building up its own infrastructure for this purpose. Natural gas was injected for the first time at the terminal in Wilhelmshaven in Lower Saxony (operator: Uniper) on December 21, and at Lubmin (operator: Deutsche Regas) in Western Pomerania on January 9.

The feed-in volume through the new three LNG terminals already reached a new high on Wednesday. According to the Federal Network Agency, a total of 217 gigawatt hours of natural gas flowed into the German long-distance pipeline system on that day. This volume corresponds to the gas consumption of around 10,850 sample households (20,000 kilowatt hours) per year. By comparison, 1274 gigawatt hours of pipeline gas flowed into Germany from Norway on Wednesday./moe/DP/stw