Croatia has officially become an LNG importing nation following the arrival of the first commercial cargo at the new Krk facility in the northern Adriatic Sea.
The 155,000-cbm Tristar Ruby arrived at the LNG Croatia FSRU on Friday morning Central European Time, its AIS data shows. The FSRU serves as an LNG import facility at the island of Krk.
The state-owned terminal operator LNG Croatia confirmed the arrival of the vessel later during the day saying the unloading operations would last until January 3.
As previously reported, the LNG carrier brings a cargo from the Dominion Cove Point facility in Maryland.
LNG Prime understands that Hungary’s state-owned MFGK, one of the three Krk capacity holders, purchased the US cargo.
This marks the start of commercial operations for LNG Croatia FSRU and the terminal. The FSRU previously delivered a small commissioning cargo from Spain for testing purposes.
In addition, Golar has recently officially handed over the FSRU to LNG Croatia but will continue operating and maintaining the vessel for at least ten years.
Golar secured a deal last year to provide its 2005-built 140,205-cbm vessel Golar Viking to the Krk project and convert it to a FSRU.
Besides the FSRU, the Krk import facility consists of a jetty and a high-pressure gas pipeline.
Croatia’s first LNG terminal will have the capacity to send up to 2.6 bcm per year of natural gas into the national grid.
Furthermore, the terminal developer said earlier this year that three firms booked all of the terminal’s capacities for the next three years.
Besides MFGK, capacity takers include trading firm MET and Qatar’s PowerGlobe.
The LNG import project costs 233.6 million euros ($284 million) with EU providing 101.4 million euros.