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According to a statement by Golar, the “key” milestone took place on January 18.
Golar said full commissioning of the FLNG has now started.
Prior to achieving this milestone, gas from the LNG carrier British Sponsor was being used to undertake advanced commissioning work.
Golar said receipt of gas from the FPSO allows the full commissioning activity to ramp up.
“The first LNG export cargo is now expected within Q1 2025, and full commercial operations date (COD) is expected within Q2 2025, subject to all conditions being met,” Golar said.
The floating LNG player noted that first gas to the FLNG will result in the final upward adjustment to the commissioning Rate under the commercial reset agreed in August 2024.
Golar said COD will trigger the start of the 20-year lease and operate agreement that unlocks the equivalent of around $3 billion of Adjusted EBITDA backlog (Golar’s share) and recognition of contractual payments comprised of capital and operating elements in both the balance sheet and income statement.
BP is the sole offtaker
Earlier this month, BP said that it had begun flowing gas from wells at the GTA Phase 1 LNG project to its FPSO vessel for the next stage of commissioning.
BP operates GTA with a 56 percent working interest, alongside Kosmos Energy (27 percent), Petrosen (10 percent) and SMH (7 percent).
In February last year, the FLNG, which was converted from a 1975-built Moss LNG carrier with a storage capacity of 125,000 cbm, arrived at the GTA hub.
After that, the project’s FPSO unit also arrived at the delayed GTA project off the coasts of Mauritania and Senegal in May.
In 2020, the partners signed a sales and purchase agreement under which BP Gas Marketing will offtake 2.45 million tonnes per annum of LNG from the first phase of the GTA project for an initial term of up to 20 years.
BP’s unit is the sole offtaker of the project’s volumes.
Besides the first phase, the partners are also planning a second phase of the project.
In February 2023, the partners confirmed the development concept for the second phase of the GTA LNG project.