Golar LNG has officially handed over the first Croatian FSRU but will continue operating and maintaining the vessel for at least ten years.
The LNG firm received a nod by the state-owned Krk terminal developer LNG Croatia marking the end of the conversion and sale of the FSRU.
The sale will release about $47 million of free cash to Golar between the fourth quarter next next year and first quarter 2021 after repayment of the vessel debt facility and settlement of remaining conversion and commissioning costs, the firm said.
To remind, 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.
After that, the LNG firm tapped Hudong-Zhonghua to perform conversion works and agreed a $160 million sale and leasback deal for the ship with CSSC Leasing, the leasing unit of China State Shipbuilding Corporation.
The ship arrived at the Huarun Dadong yard in January this year and reached completion some nine months later. It departed to Croatia at the end of September.
Croatia to join LNG importing nation club
Croatia’s first FSRU arrived at the Krk facility for the first earlier this month after picking up a small commissioning cargo from Sagunto in Spain.
LNG Croatia is curently undergoing several testing procedures and the vessel will receive its first commercial cargo from the US on January 1.
As previously reported by LNG Prime, the BP-chartered 155,000-cbm Tristar Ruby is heading towards Krk after loading a cargo at the Dominion Cove Point facility in Maryland.
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.
The LNG import project costs 233.6 million euros ($285 million) with EU providing 101.4 million euros from the Connecting Europe Facility.
