Excelerate Energy’s 150,900-cbm FSRU Exemplar has left Navantia’s yard in El Ferrol, Spain, and will be soon heading towards Inkoo to start providing regasification services under a charter contract with Finland’s Gasgrid.
Prior to arriving to Inkoo, the FSRU will pick up a cargo of LNG.
“Exemplar has started its journey towards Finland. It will take some LNG onboard before arrival,” Gasgrid’s CEO Olli Sipila said via social media on Thursday.
The 2010-built Exemplar was in the strait of Gibraltar on Friday morning, its AIS data provided by VesselsValue shows.
The FSRU could be heading to one of the Spanish LNG import terminals to take a reloaded cargo and than proceed to Inkoo.
LNG Prime contacted Sipila regarding the matter but we did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
Gasgrid previously said that the FSRU and the first commissioning cargo would arrive in Inkoo in mid-December.
Exclerate also confirmed last month that the unit would start providing regasification services in the Finnish port in December.
Commercial operations in January
Following the commissioning phase, Gasgrid is expecting to launch commercial operations at the Inkoo FSRU-based facility in mid-January.
Excelerate’s Exemplar will serve Finland, Estonia, and other Baltic states under a 10-year charter deal Gasgrid signed with the US LNG firm in May.
The FSRU can supply more than 5 billion cubic meters per year of regasification capacity. Gasgrid previously said the maximum regasification rate of the terminal into the transmission system is 140 GWh/d and the minimum 60 GWh/d.
Gasgrid is offering spot capacity slots for the first quarter and released an announcement on December 1.
The firm said that the capacity allocation would start on December 5 and the capacity would be allocated on a “first-come-first-served basis”.
Gasgrid is offering in total seven slots and they include include January 16-25, January 26-February 4, February 5-14, February 15-24, February 25-March 6, March 7-18, and March 19-31.
The first five slots are for 800 GWh capacity and the last two are for 900 GWh capacity.