Portuguese LNG Virtual Pipeline with Madeira island reaches 270,000 CO₂ environmental savings after 10,000 operations

The Portuguese “LNG Virtual Pipeline” logistics operation to supply natural gas to Madeira island for electricity production, provided by Grupo Sousa | Gáslink, surpassed 10,000 containers unloaded at the LNG Satellite Plant.

This “door-to-door” logistics solution, in placed since 2014, allows for a partial replacement of: fuel oil for electricity production, presently counting with an average energy mix of fuel oil (55%), natural gas (20%), renewables (20%) and urban solid waste (5%).

Since 2014 harmful polluting emissons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) reduced over 270,000 Tons. The environment benefits that comes from it, is also notorious in the reduction of 3,000 Tons of sulphur oxides (SO_x), 12,000 Tons of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and around 150 Tons of particulate matter, equivalent to a reduction of more than 95%, compared to fuel oil emissons, still in use by public owned Electricity Company.

The environmental benefits of this pioneering and innovative operation in an island, coupled with the fact that the majority of the logistics activities are performed by Grupo Sousa companies, with a high degree of optimization, has been contributing to its success, constituting an international case study.

“The natural gas used to produce electricity reached 2.6 TWh. The efficiency gains and logistical optimization achieved by the “LNG Virtual Pipeline” allows, today, without any additional investment, the supply up to 25% of the energy matrix, compared to the current 20%, with corresponding increased environmental benefits, once electricity production based on fuel oil is likely to be reduced below 50% along with the increase of renewables” stated Pedro Amaral Frazão, Grupo Sousa Director & CSO.