Greece’s first floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) has arrived in Alexandroupolis, where it will soon start serving Gastrade’s LNG import project.
According to its AIS data, the 153,600-cbm Alexandroupolis was on Sunday anchored offshore the Greek port of Alexandroupolis.
Greece’s Gastrade confirmed the arrival of the FSRU in the waters of the Thracian Sea in a statement issued late on Sunday.
The firm previously said that the FSRU would arrive in the port on December 17 from Singapore.
Last month, the vessel left Seatrium’s yard in Singapore following the completion of the conversion work at the yard.
Gastrade’s shareholder and Greek LNG shipping firm GasLog told Keppel Offshore & Marine, now Seatrium, in February last year to proceed with the conversion of the 2010-built, GasLog Chelsea, to an FSRU.
The vessel entered the yard in February this year and the partners renamed it to Alexandroupolis.
GasLog will sell this unit to Gastrade for about $265 million.
Besides GasLog, Gastrade’s shareholders include founder Copelouzou, DESFA, DEPA, and Bulgartransgaz.
The Greek company took the final investment decision on the project worth about 363.7 million euros ($397 million) in January last year and officially started construction in May the same year.
Terminal launch in Q1
The Alexandroupolis LNG terminal will have a capacity of 5.5 Bcm.
With this project, Greece will get its first FSRU and also the second LNG import facility, adding to DESFA’s import terminal located on the island of Revithoussa.
In addition to this unit, Gastrade is also planning to install a second FSRU offshore Alexandroupolis.
The first FSRU will be permanently moored at a fixed point and at a distance of 17.6 km SW from the port of Alexandroupolis and 10 km from the nearest coast of Makri.
Three new tugs, owned by Denmark’s Svitzer, will serve Gastrade’s FSRU-based LNG import terminal.
In the following days, the FSRU will be anchored through a spread 12-point mooring system, Gastrade said.
The FSRU will then be connected to the high-pressure subsea and onshore gas transmission pipeline.
Once operational, the pipeline will deliver natural gas to the Greek transmission system and onwards to the final consumers in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia and further to Moldova and Ukraine to the East and Hungary and Slovakia to the West, Gastrade said.
Gastrade recently extended the bid deadline to December 15 for its tender seeking a liquefied natural gas cargo for the commissioning of the FSRU.
The company previously told LNG Prime that it expects to receive the commissioning cargo in January and to launch commercial operations by the end of the first quarter.
(Updated with a statement by Gastrade.)