Botas, EGAS ink FSRU charter deal

Turkiye’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced the deal via social media on Tuesday following a meeting with Egypt’s Petroleum Minister, Karim Badawi.

He did not reveal the name of the FSRU or additional details regarding the contract.

The FSRU will work in Egypt for seasonal LNG imports.

Bayraktar noted that a Botas-owned FSRU will for the first time serve abroad Turkiye.

Botas also confirmed the charter agreement in a separate statement later on Tuesday.

Under the agreement, the FSRU will provide LNG storage and regasification services in Egypt during the summer of 2025, when natural gas demand is expected to be high.

“With this contract, which can be extended contingent on the agreement of the parties, for the first time in the world, an FSRU vessel will undertake operational duties in two different countries for a period of years to meet the seasonally fluctuating demand,” Botas said.

Two FSRUs

Earlier this year, Kpler reported, citing sources, that Egypt had signed a deal to deploy one of Turkiye’s operational FSRUs at Egypt’s Ain Sokhna port to cover LNG demand in June-November.

Kpler said that the most likely candidate is the 170,000-cbm Ertugrul Gazi, owned by Botas.

This unit is serving the Dortyol facility in the southern province of Hatay.

However, another possibility is the 180,000-cbm Vasant-1, also owned by Botas and deployed at the Saros LNG terminal.

Last year, India’s Swan Energy agreed to sell its 2020-built FSRU, Vasant 1, to Botas for $399 million.

Egypt boosting LNG imports

This is Egypt’s third FSRU charter agreement in the last seven days, and the fourth FSRU charter deal in total.

Norwegian FSRU player Hoegh Evi just signed a new charter deal with Egypt’s EGAS to deploy a converted FSRU in Egypt.

The charter is for 10 years.

Under a contract with Hoegh Evi, Singapore’s Seatrium will convert the LNG carrier Hoegh Gandria into a floating storage and regasification unit.

The FSRU Hoegh Gandria will be deployed in the fourth quarter of 2026 to the Port of Sumed and will supply up to 1,000 mmscf/day of peak LNG regasification capacity.

The unit will replace the FSRU Hoegh Galleon, which was deployed to Egypt in July 2024, on an interim charter from Australian Industrial Energy (AIE) and Hoegh Evi.

According to Hoegh Evi, Galleon will remain in Egypt for up to an additional year before deployment to AIE’s LNG terminal in Port Kembla, Australia in 2027. 

Energos Power and Energos Eskimo

This Hoegh Evi announcement came just days after Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy signed a deal with EGAS to charter the 174,000-cbm FSRU Energos Power.

EGAS subchartered the FSRU from BMWK.

The unit, with a regasification capacity of up to 7.5 bcm per year, is on a ten-year charter deal with BMWK, which started in 2023.

Energos Infrastructure, a part of US asset manager Apollo, owns this FSRU.

Egypt shifted from being an LNG exporter to an importer early last year due to declining domestic gas production and rising demand for cooling amid multiple heatwaves.

To support its growing need for natural gas, Egypt currently hosts Hoegh Galleon at the Sumed port in Ain Sokhna, with a second unit, the 160,000-cbm Energos Eskimo, set to arrive in June.

In December 2024, Egypt’s EGAS signed a deal with US LNG player New Fortress Energy to charter a second FSRU.

Energos Infrastructure also owns Energos Eskimo.