Energy group RWE confirms preliminary work for LNG terminals off Rügen
Despite the veto of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD), according to the German Environmental Aid, preliminary work for further LNG terminals east of Rügen has apparently begun. Ship movements in the sea area in question indicated that a scavenging dredger had started work and that test drilling could also be carried out. “The pattern repeats itself. This is also how the North Sea Terminal off Wilhelmshaven was built,” said Constantin Zerger, Head of Energy and Climate Protection at Deutsche Umwelthilfe, on Saturday evening.
During the course of the day, the ship’s movements of the “Swarog” dredger on the “JB119” construction platform off the south-eastern tip of Rügen were registered and also recorded in pictures. As a precaution, environmental aid lodged an objection with the Stralsund Mining Authority, but received no reply by the evening. Zerger pointed out that “any dredging work at the present time was during the herring spawning season and the bird migration period”. From a nature conservation and legal point of view, the approval of an early start of construction or even just preparatory work can be ruled out.
State Environment Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) also agreed. The approval process is ongoing, and the deadline for objections to the project only expired on Friday, Backhaus said in the evening. Premature measures are not known to him and are not indicated. Like Schwesig, Backhaus also expressed concerns about the planned location for two more liquid gas terminals that the energy company RWE wants to build on behalf of the federal government just a few kilometers from the seaside resorts of Binz and Sellin. Local politicians and tourism associations are also strictly against it. RWE could not be reached for comment that evening.
It was only on Friday that Prime Minister Schwesig underpinned her criticism of the federal government’s previous plans for two liquefied natural gas terminals off Rügen and called for alternatives. “For example, that you go out very, very far where it doesn’t bother anyone at all – and then maybe build a longer line,” said Schwesig on NDR television. But the federal government must first answer the question of whether additional terminals off Rügen are still necessary.
