France’s first floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) has arrived in Le Havre and the unit is expected to start delivering natural gas supplies to the grid this month, according to TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies charters this 2010-built 145,130-cbm vessel from Hoegh LNG, which has a 50 percent stake in Cape Ann and Japan’s MOL, which owns a 48.5 percent stake. Tokyo LNG Tanker holds a 1.5 percent share in the unit.
LNG Prime reported on September 12 that the FSRU took a cargo off Gibraltar via a ship-to-ship operation with the LNG carrier Seapeak Arwa.
Prior to that, Seapeak Arwa loaded the shipment at Equinor’s Hammerfest LNG export plant in Norway where TotalEnergies has a stake.
A spokesperson for TotalEnergies confirmed that Cape Ann, loaded with a cargo, berthed on Monday afternoon at the “Bougainville Sud” dock in the Le Havre port.
Moreover, the spokesperson said that commissioning is “progressing well” and sendout from the FSRU to the downstream grid is scheduled to start in September.
France currently hosts four onshore LNG terminals with a capacity of about 26.8 mtpa. These are Elengy’s Fos Tonkin, Fos Cavaou, and Montoir-de-Bretagne LNG terminals, and also the Dunkirk LNG facility.
The FSRU-based terminal in Le Havre will allow France to increase its regasification capacity by around 5 Bcm per year.
TotalEnergies previously said it plans to reserve about 50 percent of this capacity.
Besides the FSRU, Paris-based LNG engineering giant Technip Energies won a contract last year from TotalEnergies to provide a marine loading arm for the Le Havre facility.
TotalEnergies will operate the FSRU and GRTgaz will operate the connecting pipeline to the gas transmission network.