Gasunie said on 1 October that construction of the fourth storage tank at the Gate LNG terminal on Rotterdam’s Maasvlakte had been completed as scheduled. The operator said the tank, which can hold 180,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas (LNG), entered commissioning that day after three years of construction. Completion of construction is distinct from technical commissioning and the gradual use of operating capacity. The stated tank volume is a design capacity; it does not show that the tank was full or receiving LNG at that rate on the announcement date.

Gasunie said the expansion adds 4 billion cubic metres per year to Gate’s regasification capacity, bringing the terminal total to 20 billion cubic metres annually. The company compared that total with an approximately 30-billion-cubic-metre annual volume for the Dutch gas market. The comparison conveys the scale of terminal capacity. It does not mean all gas would be consumed in the Netherlands, that the terminal will be fully used every year, or that imports from any one country will cease. LNG origin, contracts, regasification use and network flows are separate variables.

LNG is natural gas cooled into liquid form so it can be transported by ship. A terminal receives cargoes, temporarily stores the liquid, then regasifies it for delivery into transmission networks. The fourth tank increases storage buffering, while Gasunie says the wider project also raises regasification capacity. Storage volume and annual processing capacity describe different physical quantities: one is the LNG that can be held at a point in time; the other is the volume that can be regasified over a year. They should not be added as though they were a single capacity measure.

Gasunie says the decision to build the tank was partly a response to the 2022 energy crisis. Gate, a joint venture between Gasunie and Vopak, connects to transmission systems serving the Netherlands and surrounding countries. The ability to receive LNG from different parts of the world is presented as an opportunity to diversify supply. Additional terminal capacity by itself does not guarantee lower prices, more domestic production or zero supply risk. Those outcomes depend on global LNG availability, shipping, prices, contract structures and pipeline capacity.

The release also describes future projects that should be kept separate from the tank’s 1 October commissioning. The Port of Rotterdam took a final investment decision for Jetty 4 in January 2026; small-scale ship loading and bunkering are expected to begin toward the end of 2028. Gate launched a non-binding expression of interest for intended Jetty 5 capacity on 31 August. These are different project stages from the completed fourth tank. Whether expanded capacity translates into actual energy flows can be assessed through operating and utilization data published later.