Turkey’s new FSRU, located at the Dortyol facility in the southern province of Hatay, will receive its first cargo of LNG this week, according to the country’s energy minister Fatih Donmez.
Donmez revealed this during an official ceremony held on Friday to mark the start of operations for the new unit.
He said in a speech the FSRU would carry out its first ship-to-ship LNG transfer on June 29, but he did not reveal any further information on the incoming cargo.
BW’s 138,000-cbm Berge Arzew LNG carrier was near the FSRU on Monday, according to its AIS data. It previously loaded a cargo at the Sonatrach-operated Arzew LNG facility in Algeria, the data shows.
The FSRU would add “significant flexibility” to the country’s energy supply chain security with its 170,000 cbm of storage and 28 million cubic meters per day of regasification capacity, Donmez said.
To remind, Turkey’s FSRU Ertugrul Gazi, owned by Botas, arrived in April in the province of Hatay to start supplying regasified LNG to the Dortyol facility.
Botas, a unit of Turkish Petroleum Corp, has appointed Wilhelmsen Ship Management as the manager of the first Turkish-flagged FSRU.
In addition to the brand new Ertugrul Gazi, there is also one other FSRU operating in Turkey at the privately-owned Etki terminal in Aliaga, Izmir. The 170,000-cbm Turquoise belongs to Pardus Energy.
Turkey also plans to add another FSRU in Saros Bay, north of the Gallipoli Peninsula.