Croatia Opens Tender to Build Krk Gas Terminal

LNG Croatia, the state company responsible for constructing a planned gas terminal on the island of Krk on the northern Croatian coast, on Tuesday opened a tender for potential investors.

The planned terminal will receive, store and re-gasify liquefied natural gas, LNG.

The tender will be open until December 15, while bidders will have use of a virtual data room, containing more details on the project, from September 1 onwards.

With a projected capacity of up to 6 billion square metres of gas, the cost of the terminal is is set at 600 million euro. Including the accompanying infrastructure, the total cost goes over a billion euro.

Construction will start in mid-2016 and will last for three years.

Last week, the government declared construction of the terminal "a strategic investment project", which means that the whole procedure will be expedited and made a top priority.

The government sees the terminal as important for economic growth, development and new employment, also emphasizing its importance for the EU, which wants to see more energy diversification in the region.

As Croatia uses around 2.7 billion cubic metres of gas a year and the terminal will have a projected capacity of 4 to 6 billion cubic metres, it will be in a position to supply EU and regional countries with gas as well.

The terminal on Krk has been classified a medium-term project in European energy security strategy, along with the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, TAP, and its Croatian corridor, the Ionian-Adriatic Pipeline, IAP, to which the Krk terminal would potentially be linked.

The EU backed the project in October 2014, offering 4.9 million euro towards a feasibility study for the project. The EU called it important for "building an...