FRANKFURT, April 10 (Reuters) - Germany's Baltic Sea

import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Mukran on

Ruegen island has received its operating permit under federal

and state laws, private operating company Deutsche ReGas said on

Wednesday.

"Deutsche ReGas is making an even greater contribution to

the secure supply of gas to eastern Germany, its eastern

European neighbours and the industrial locations in southwest

Germany," it said in a press release.

Approvals for the regasification terminal were received

under federal pollution laws and water laws in the state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it said.

Germany has intensified its quest to increase LNG capacity

for regasification on its shores since Russia's invasion of

Ukraine prompted European countries seek to reduce their heavy

reliance on Russian gas.

The terminal, called Deutsche Ostsee, has capacity of up to

13.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year to be received

by floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) and to be

fed into onshore gas transport networks.

Germany last year consumed 83.2 bcm of gas for industry and

heating.

Wintershall Dea and SEFE subsidiary Gascade, a gas

pipeline operator, completed the 50km Ostsee-Anbindungsleitung

(OAL) link in February to hook up Mukran with onshore grids,

coinciding with the arrival of the Energos Power FSRU.

The Mukran project has triggered local opposition from

environmental groups that say that wildlife and tourism could

suffer from the new infrastructure and that there is sufficient

gas import capacity elsewhere.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert

Editing by Miranda Murray and David Goodman

)