• The company has invested nearly €800,000 in setting up the liquefied natural gas and in the 2.8 km of network built to supply Arenas de Iguña.

Arenas de Iguña (Cantabria), 20 February 2018.- The Premier of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla, and the  Naturgas Chairman, Alejandro Legarda, today opened the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant that the company has set up in the Arenas de Iguña municipality. Pablo Gómez, the town’s mayor, the Naturgas CEO, Massimo Rossini, and other authorities were also at the ceremony.

Naturgas has invested nearly €800,000 to set up the plant and build the 2.8-km network to supply 330 potential customers in Arenas de Iguña, including the local residents, sports centres, schools and companies (Andros, the French dairy multinational, already has the service).

The Premier of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla, assessed this investment and stressed that it was a step further at putting rural areas on a level playing field with urban environment, by providing a supply such as natural gas to a community that had not previously had access to it. Therefore, he called on the company to continue working in the same line to carry out bringing the network to rural Cantabria.

In turn, the Naturgas Chairman, Alejandro Legarda, pointed out that “this new plant is part of the initiatives that the company is implementing to bring natural gas to small population centres and which are far from large distribution networks. We will therefore continue extending our network in Cantabria, where we currently already have 1,838 km of gas pipelines and a total of 209, 400 supply points”.

Furthermore, the Naturgas CEO, Massimo Rossini, stressed “the company’s commitment to Cantabria with the modernising of its distribution networks and the development of new expansion projects, with over €25 million since 2010.”

According to Juan Ramón Arraibi, Naturgas Chief Operating officer, “the infrastructure in Arenas de Iguña consists of a liquefied natural gas satellite plant with 106 m3 of storage capacity and a regular tank loading system using tanker lorries, which guarantee our customers continuity of supply and a convenient service”.

Furthermore, “the facility is double safe”. On the one hand, as a fuel, because natural gas is lighter than air, does not accumulate and is easily dispersed in the atmosphere. On the other hand, because the plant is on the outskirts of the urban area and the tanker tanks do not need to cross the town to the refilling point,” explained Juan Ramón Arraibi.

The new Naturgas facility is environmentally friendly as natural gas is the fossil fuel that produces the lowest amount of CO₂ per energy unit. Furthermore, the facility has a main regasification system based on atmospheric steamers, which significantly reduce the emissions directly or indirectly associated to the LNG plant.

With the arrival of natural gas, customers will be able to benefit from the access to the liberalised market offered by natural gas and opt for more competitive joint gas and electricity supply offers.