Helsinki-based Wärtsilä Corp. has joined with an LNG distributor to further penetrate the industrial sector as the EU’s emissions reduction deadline looms in 2020.

The agreement signed on Aug. 29 with Espoo, Finland-based Gasum Ltd., is geared toward developing natural gas use, distribution and service solutions for customers in the marine and onshore sectors. Gasum subsidiary Skangas supplies LNG to the shipping, industrial and heavy road transport sectors in Scandinavia.

The partnership will combine Wärtsilä’s gas value chain technology know-how with Gasum’s LNG distribution expertise. Much of the work will focus on building new market opportunities by developing infrastructure in regions where LNG is unavailable. The partners also want to explore development of liquefied biogas (LBG) opportunities.

“This agreement with Gasum will help speed the transition to gas fuel and advance environmental sustainability,” Jaakko Eskola, Wärtsilä’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

The EU’s 2020 Climate & Energy Package is binding legislation to ensure a 20% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from the 1990s; a 20% share of energy consumption achieved from renewable sources; and a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. The targets were set in 2007 and approved as legislation in 2009.

Eurostat, the European Commission’s provider of statistics, reported that the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland together consumed 8,257 thousand tons of natural gas in 2014. Exhaust from gas-fueled engines contains significantly lower greenhouse-gas emissions.

Joseph Markman can be reached at jmarkman@hartenergy.com and @JHMarkman.

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