Deutsche ReGas said on Friday that a small carrier had delivered the first LNG cargo to the FSRU Neptune in the port of Lubmin. This shipment will be used for the commissioning purposes of the FSRU-based terminal.
The small LNG/ethylene carrier, Coral Furcata, operated by Dutch firm Anthony Veder, delivered the shipment to the 2009-built 145,000-cbm, FSRU Neptune.
According to Deutsche ReGas, the vessel can carry about 10,000 cbm of LNG and previously took the cargo from the 137,814-cbm LNG carrier Seapeak Hispania, which serves as a floating storage unit for the project.
Sepeak Hispania arrived last week offshore the island of Ruegen carrying a cargo from Egypt’s Idku plant.
In the future, this vessel will take liquefied natural gas from LNG carriers and store it while smaller carriers such as Coral Furcata and Coral Favia will take take the fuel from the FSU and deliver it to the FSRU in Lubmin due to draft restrictions in the area.
Coral Favia is also located near Seapeak Hispania and the vessel is expected to load a cargo soon.
Testing purposes
In November, FSRU Neptune arrived in the Mukran port on the island of Ruegen, where Deutsche ReGas prepared the FSRU in cooperation with the port prior to the unit heading to Lubmin to start providing regasification services.
This included reducing the FSRUs draught from 9.6 meters to around 5.2 meters due to shallow waters in Lubmin and fitting the unit with a pipe adapter to ensure a precise connection of the FSRU to the onshore system.
The firm led by Ingo Wagner and Stephan Knabe moved the FSRU it chartered from TotalEnergies to Lubmin earlier this month.
Hoegh LNG Partners, now 100 percent owned by Hoegh LNG, has a 50 percent stake in this unit, MOL owns 48.5 percent, and Tokyo LNG Tanker has 1.5 percent.
Originally, Deutsche ReGas planned to launch the Lubmin facility on December 1.
However, the firm said in an update released on November 29 that the timeline of the project could change as it still awaits to receive approval from the local government.
Depending on the approval, Deutsche Regas said it still could launch the project by the end of December.
It appears that Deutsche ReGas received approval for the test operation but it is still awaiting for the final approval.
Knabe said in the statement on Friday that the FSRU would regasify the small LNG shipment and deliver it to the pipeline operated by Gascade.
However, Knabe said that this is only for testing purposes and that commercial operations would only begin after the completion of the test phase and the receipt of the operating license.
Second FSRU-based terminal
With this shipment, the Lubmin facility would probably become the second operational FSRU-based terminal in Germany.
This comes just two weeks after Uniper and its partners officially launched Germany’s first FSRU-based LNG import facility in Wilhelmshaven.
Germany has in total backed the charters of five FSRUs while the Lubmin facility is the first private project.
German energy firm RWE is also expecting to receive the first commissioning cargo at the Elbhafen FSRU-based LNG import terminal in Brunsbuettel in January.
This government-backed terminal will also feature Hoegh’s vessel, Hoegh Gannet.