Italy’s OLT Offshore LNG Toscana said it expects its FSRU Toscana to resume operations from mid-October this year after the unit completes planned shipyard activities in Genoa and Marseille.
In February, OLT Offshore said that it aims to start maintenance at its FSRU terminal, located about 22 km off the coast between Livorno and Pisa, on March 1 and that the maintenance activity is expected to end by October 31.
The LNG terminal operator said in a statement on Friday that it has completed the uninstallation operations of the FSRU.
Moreover, OLT said the FSRU will be towed, with the support of two tugs, to the port of Genoa, where it will remain at the dock for about a month to begin the first phase of the “extraordinary maintenance intervention” aimed at replacing the bearing of the anchoring system,
This system is designed and built to ensure the rotation of the terminal around the geostationary turret permanently anchored to the seabed.
According to its AIS data, the FSRU arrived in the port of Genoa on April 13.
Contract awarded to SGdP
Following a tender procedure, OLT Offshore awarded the contract for the FSRU maintenance work to Italay’s San Giorgio del Porto (SGdP).
OLT Offshore did not provide the price tag of the deal.
In early June, the FSRU Toscana be towed to the French port of Marseille, once again at the SGdP yard, where maintenance will be completed, it said.
Shipyard activities are expected to be completed by the mid of September, and these will be followed by operations to reinstall the FSRU terminal in its current site offshore Livorno.
It is expected that the FSRU will resume operations from mid-October, OLT Offshore said.
The FSRU 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.