From wind turbines to LNG capacity, Dragon LNG, as a critical national infrastructure site, is playing a leading role in the UK’s energy transition
What does it mean to be a true leader in energy infrastructure? Operating one of the UK’s only three LNG terminals, Dragon LNG (Dragon) is well-equipped to answer. Redefining the industry standards of resilience and reliability, Dragon’s state-of-the-art LNG terminal – which is situated in Milford Haven, Southwest Wales – has been a key pillar in the UK’s energy infrastructure since its commissioning in 2009. Backed by multi-million pound investments by its two shareholders, Shell and VTTI, the terminal has the capacity to receive up to 96 LNG vessels each year and supplies around ten percent of the UK’s annual gas demand.
Championing its core values of respect, teamwork, integrity, and a hunger to learn at any opportunity, Dragon possesses one overarching ambition as a ‘a highly competitive LNG Terminal thriving in the energy transition.’ Alongside large capital investments such as its reliquefication plant, Dragon Group, through its Dragon Energy Division, operates Dragon’s Renewable Energy Park. This currently produces ten megawatts of solar derived energy, augmenting its scope of sustainable solutions and overall infrastructural impact.
When Simon Ames, Managing Director of Dragon, last sat down with Energy, Oil & Gas over a year ago, he shared exclusive insight into the terminal’s ongoing operations and the company’s wider decarbonization and regasification projects. Since that conversation, Dragon has continued to prosper, with the first quarter of 2025 marking its busiest operational period ever regarding LNG volumes. Furthermore, Simon revealed that Dragon was undergoing a third-party access auction for its LNG terminal, and, joining us again in 2025, he is keen to provide an update on the auction’s progress.
Full flexibility
“In the last year and a half, Dragon has continued to bring in strong numbers of LNG carriers into the UK. With that, we’ve been upgrading a lot of our equipment, such as the control systems to our vaporizers and our flare and relief safety systems. Aside from these equipment upgrades, we’ve been doing a lot of work across our site, particularly in terms of normal plant operations, maintenance, and capital projects,” Simon begins, thrilled to share Dragon’s latest developments.
“Alongside these projects, we completed the capacity marketing consultation phase for our LNG terminal access auction in the early summer, wherein we went to Ofgem to get their approval to enter into the formal parts of the auction process,” he continues. “We’ve since conducted the market consultation, where we released our documentation into an online data room and invited customers to observe under NDA the product that we will take to market and offer through that auction process.
“In September 2025, we attended Gastech in Milan, and had good, strong discussions about our market offering, and we found that there was a great deal of interest. We’re now in the process of providing an overall summary of that feedback to Ofgem, and we’re hoping to be able to provide a notice of auction and the final documentation in January 2026.”
The market consultation officially closed on October 17th after being extended due to significant interest. With the terminal boasting over nine billion cubic meters of regasification capacity, which can be accessed by prospective customers as soon as August 26th, 2029, Dragon looks forward to offering unmatched access flexibility and reliability through its innovative ‘bundle model’. Under Dragon’s bundle model, customers can access tranches as small as 1.11 billion cubic meters per annum, all the way up to its full nine billion cubic meter capacity.
“The bundle model means that our customers will have a primary access agreement that will give them security to access our terminal when needed; it’s that slot whereby they can bring in an LNG carrier onto our jetty, offload those volumes, access our storage and then send-out to market with the full flexibility that our terminal offers,” Simon explains. 
“Our facility is unique in that our bundle model offers a ‘zero send-in, zero send-out’ flexibility, so our customers can choose when they want to use those slots and store those gas volumes indefinitely if needed. This is through our reliquefication plant, reliquefying the boil-off gas so that our customers’ do not lose volumes and therefore cargo value; they can keep the gas and send it back out into the market as required, particularly during the winter when there’s a price premium. It’s that flexibility and value that our customers find attractive about our terminal.”
Energy mix
Directly aligning with Dragon’s market-leading position in the UK’s energy landscape, the nine billion cubic meters of gas entering the UK NBP market is critical for the country’s energy security. This volume will, undoubtedly, create a monumental impact on the resilience and availability of gas for, not merely the UK market, but across Europe, further bolstering Dragon’s tremendous 99.8 percent reliability record. Alongside the access auction, Dragon has made significant strides in building wind turbines at its Dragon Renewables Park which will start generating power as early as Q2 next year. This project was still in the planning phase when we last spoke with Simon. Since then, the project has progressed remarkably, and Dragon is very proud to be working closely with onshore wind turbine manufacturer and supplier, Enercon, and Knights Brown as the principal contractor.
“We’re well underway with our wind park, which will supplement the existing Dragon Renewables Park. We commissioned 20,000 solar panels to our Renewables Park in 2023, which generates around ten megawatts of energy when the sun is shining, and the wind turbines will provide another 13 and a half megawatts. The three wind turbines will be positioned within the solar park itself and will arrive on site next January,” Simon enthuses.
“The project is progressing really well and we’re very proud to be working with Enercon and Knights Brown. We signed the supply agreement for the wind turbines with Enercon earlier this year. They’ve been great – both at a leadership and ground team level – at progressing those commercial arrangements and ensuring that the delivery of the turbines stays on track. Additionally, Knights Brown – our principal contractor on site – has been extremely professional and efficient in doing the foundation work and staying on schedule, and we’ve been really pleased to see the high quality safety systems that they’re using on site.”
With these major projects and initiatives underway, it’s evident that Dragon LNG continues to be a company defined by impact – an illustration of infrastructural excellence across the UK’s energy sector. Looking ahead into 2026, the company aims to have officially launched its capacity auction process following its completed market consultation, whilst bringing its three new wind turbines into operation. On a wider scope, Dragon is set to remain a key player in the market, recognized for its vast sustainability efforts as it edges ever-closer to its net-zero goal.
“We’ve got an exciting future ahead. Once we sign the contracts with new customers, we’ll be able to sit down with them and discuss how they can best utilize our capacity and where we can focus future investments. As mentioned, we’re investing a lot into this plant in regards to life extension work as well as decarbonization projects, and, as LNG becomes more widely utilized across the world, we expect to see volumes increase over the next ten years through the Milford Haven Access Point,” Simon affirms, optimistic for the future.
“We strongly believe that gas has an important place in the UK’s energy mix, particularly in terms of ensuring that energy remains affordable for customers,” he says, concluding our conversation. “I think that the UK has a bright future, as do we, as part of that energy security and affordability. The future is what will make the economy boom, and we’re confident that we’ll also see further growth as a result.”