Gasum

History

The first natural gas pipeline from the Soviet Union to Finland was opened in 1974. From 1974 to 1994 Neste Oy was responsible for a gas business in Finland, also the import of natural gas, the transmission services and the wholesale of natural gas. Gasum was established in 1994 as a joint venture between Neste (75%) and Gazprom (25%). After merger of Neste and Imatran Voima in 1998, the newly created company Fortum had to reduce its stake in the company to 25%. The Government of Finland (24%), E.ON (20%) and Finnish forest companies (6%) became new shareholders. In 2004, Fortum acquired the 6% stake from the forest companies. In 2015, Fortum and E.ON sold their stake to the Finnish government.

Operations

Gasum's operates in the field of natural gas import, transmission, distribution and sale. In addition, it produces and sales biogas. In 2014 Gasum acquired the majority (51 percent) of Norwegian Skangas’ distribution operations from the Lyse Corporation.

In 2010 Gasum sold a total of 44.6 TWh of natural gas, which covered 10% of Finland's total demand for energy.

Gas transmission

Gasum owns 1,190 kilometres (740 mi) of gas transmission network in Finland. The transmission network is Gasum's largest asset and a major part of Gasum personnel, approximately 100 employees work in transmission maintenance duties. The natural gas volume of transmission pipeline is 261,000 cubic metres (9,200,000 cu ft).

Gasum planned to build a subsea gas pipeline Balticconnector to connect Finland with the Estonian gas system and further with a gas storage in Latvia. In October 2015, Gasum abandoned the project due to commercial viability. It was replaced in the project by the Finnish state-owned company Baltic Connector OY.

LNG distribution

Gasum´s subsidiary Skangas Ltd is building Finland’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the oil and chemical harbor of the Port of Tahkoluoto in Pori.

Filling stations

As of 2014, Gasum had 18 public NGV filling stations in Finland.

Biogas production

In 2011, Gasum started biogas production by using anaerobic digestion. Gasum is cooperating with energy company Helsingin Energia and forest industry company Metsä-Botnia for construction of a biorefinery for biogas production in Joutseno, Finland. The biorefinery would produce biogas from renewable wood raw material for transmission along the Gasum gas network to usage sites such as Helsinki Energy's Vuosaari power plant. This project is a continuation to the letter of intent signed by Gasum and Helsingin Energia in April 2011. If the plan will realised, a biorefinery of this scale could produce an annual total of biogas that is enough to cover the electricity and heat consumption of more than 50,000 homes.

According to the preliminary plan, Metsä-Botnia and its parent company Metsäliitto would be responsible for wood raw material procurement and biorefinery operation. The plan is to mainly produce biogas from forest chips and bark, both of which are available as by-products of pulp mill wood procurement. The production capacity of the planned refinery would be 200 MW.

Gasum and the Kouvola energy company KSS Energia have signed a letter of intent to build a large-scale biogas facility in the Kouvola region. The facility would be fueled by locally produced field biomass. Biogas produced by the plant could be fed into the Gasum's gas transmission system and used as a traffic fuel. The parties to the letter of intent are committed to studying among other things the technical operating concept of the facility, environmental impacts, potential location and economic feasibility. The Kouvola region is a good place to site this kind of facility producing biogas from energy crops. The region is naturally located with regards to the natural gas transmission system.