Italy’s OLT Offshore LNG Toscana said that its FSRU Toscana has arrived in the French port of Marseille to complete the second and final phase of planned shipyard activities.
OLT said in a statement on Tuesday that the first phase of “extraordinary maintenance intervention” had been completed on schedule.
Following a tender procedure, OLT awarded the contract for the FSRU maintenance work to Italy’s San Giorgio del Porto (SGdP), and the FSRU arrived in Italy’s Genoa in April to complete the first phase of the planned activities.
Towed by three tugs, the vessel arrived at SGdP’s Chantier Naval de Marseille, where the maintenance operations aimed at replacing the bearing of the anchoring system will be completed, OLT said.
This system is designed and built to ensure the rotation of the terminal around the geostationary turret permanently anchored to the seabed.
Moreover, shipyard activities are expected to be completed by the mid of September, and these will be followed by operations to reinstall the FSRU in its current site, located about 22 km off the coast between Livorno and Pisa.
OLT expects FSRU Toscana to resume operations by end of October.
The FSRU has a maximum regasification capacity of 5 bcm a year and it sends natural gas to Italy’s national grid via a 36.5 kilometers long pipeline.
Italy’s Snam holds a 49.07 percent stake in the LNG terminal, while Igneo Infrastructure Partners owns a 48.24 percent share.
Also, Golar LNG, that provided the 2003-built 137,100-cbm FSRU, has a minor 2.69 percent stake in the LNG import facility.