Lithuania’s Klaipedos Nafta, the state-owned operator of the country’s first LNG import facility, said the 170,000-cbm FSRU Independence had completed its 300th ship-to-ship transfer since the start of operations in 2014.
The FSRU completed the milestone operation with the 7,500-cbm Avenir Ascension, owned by small-scale player Avenir LNG.
KN did not provide any additional information regarding the operation but LNG Prime understands that Avenir Aspiration loaded the cargo from the FSRU.
The vessel will deliver about one half of the cargo to the nearby Klaipeda reloading station and use the rest for its operations in Baltic Sea, mainly for Sweden’s Destination Gotland.
Avenir, the joint venture of Stolt-Nielsen, Hoegh LNG, and Golar LNG, recently said it would use this bunkering and supply vessel to deliver fuel to two LNG-powered vessels owned by Gotland and for other operations across the Baltic Sea.
Its shareholder Hoegh also owns the FSRU independence but KN has decided to buy the unit for $153.5 million, excluding VAT, at the end of its current lease deal.
KN has been leasing the unit from Norway’s Hoegh since 2014 under a ten-year deal.
Norway and US main LNG suppliers
During this almost 92 months of operation, 47 different LNG carriers visited the FSRU bringing LNG from seven countries, according to KN.
The unit received in total 17.4 million cubic meters of LNG. Most of these supplies or 58 percent came from Norway, followed by the US that supplied 27 percent of these volumes.
KN said that the FSRU regasified in total 111 TWh, delivering the fuel to Lithuania but also to other countries such as Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and others.
Lithuania said in April it had completely abandoned imports of Russian gas and would satisfy the country’s entire gas demand via the FSRU-based LNG import facility in the port of Klaipeda.
In June, KN’s customers have fully booked the LNG terminal’s regasification capacity for this gas year ending September 30, and FSRU Independence would receive 20 large LNG cargoes in the March-September period.
Also, five companies from Lithuania, Estonia and Poland would receive in total ten LNG cargoes via the FSRU in the fourth quarter of this year.
(Article updated to add more details regarding the Avenir Aspiration reloading operation.)
