Ambassadors of European Union Member States, along with Norway and Switzerland, visited the new floating storage and regasification unit in northern Greece, called the Alexandroupolis FSRU, this past Wednesday, as the terminal gears up for the commencement of its operations on October 1.

The visit was organized by the Embassy of Hungary, which holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until December 31, 2024.

The development of Alexandroupolis FSRU is managed by a company called Gastrade. On the day of the visit, the CEO of Gastrade, Kostis Sifnaios told visitors that, ” We are just a few days away from the start of the Terminal’s commercial operations on October 1st, a date that will officially mark the beginning of a new era for the role of Alexandroupolis and Greece on the energy map of Southeast and Central Europe. This will offer significant opportunities for diversifying supply sources, especially following the recent agreement involving the commitment of a quarter of the Terminal’s capacity by the American company Venture Global LNG.”

The project is considered an essential piece of a greater plan for the region that will create a ‘Vertical Corridor’ to improve the energy security of central and southeast Europe and reduce the region’s dependency on Russian natural gas.

The Vertical Corridor will transfer natural gas to the EU market, from Greece to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, and Ukraine, and vice versa, through European natural gas and LNG transmission systems.

The Alexandroupolis FSRU is a part of the Alexandroupolis LNG terminal, which connects directly to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

The TAP transports Azerbaijani gas from the Turkish border, across all of Northern Greece and continues on to Italy via undersea link from Albania.

The majority of the imported LNG is not currently planned for sale in Greece; it is estimated that 60-70 percent of the gas produced at the regasification unit will be exported through the new Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) pipeline in reverse flow to Bulgaria, if not sent further.