Snam’s 170,000-cbm FSRU located in the Italian port of Piombino is now listed in the Italian ship registry. The vessel, previously known as Golar Tundra, has also been renamed to Italis LNG.
According to a statement by Snam issued on Thursday, the new name was approved by Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and the old Marshall Islands flag has been replaced with the tricolour Italian flag.
After sending a formal request to the Livorno Port Authority, Snam’s company FSRU Italia completed the process of registering the FSRU in the Italian ship registry, intending to update it to the technical requirements of Italian regulations, it said.
29 LNG cargoes
In 2022, Snam purchased the 2015-built Golar Tundra with a regasification capacity of 5 bcm from Golar LNG.
The FSRU received its first commercial shipment in Piombino from Eni in July last year.
Eni booked regasification capacity at the FSRU-based facility and it also in April delivered the first LNG cargo produced at its Tango floating LNG facility in Congo to the unit.
“The inclusion of the Piombino floating LNG terminal in the Italian ship registry is another important step for our FSRU, which we are particularly pleased about,” Stefano Venier, CEO of Snam said in the statement-
“In just under a year, Italis LNG has received 29 cargoes of liquefied natural gas from five different countries, for a total of 2.6 billion cubic meters of gas injected into the Italian network, further guaranteeing the security and diversification of energy sources for our country,” he said.
With a total of 23 billion cubic meters of regasification capacity, LNG today makes an “essential contribution” to the security of the Italian gas system, according to Snam.
LNG now covers a quarter of Italy’s gas supply and, in the first two months of 2024, overtook the main entry point via pipeline, namely Mazara del Vallo, where gas from Algeria is, the company said.
Ravenna FSRU
By allowing LNG to come from different supplier countries, FSRUs are therefore a “key asset” in ensuring flexibility for the country’s entire energy system, Snam said.
As part of its initiatives from 2022 onwards to further diversify the country’s gas supplies following the Russia-Ukraine crisis, in addition to Italis LNG, Snam has also acquired the FSRU BW Singapore from BW LNG for about $400 million.
Snam said this 2015-built unit will start operating off the coast of Ravenna in early 2025.
The country’s overall regasification capacity will then rise to 28 billion cubic meters, equally distributed between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic coasts, for a total volume equivalent to what the pipeline imported from Russia in 2021, Snam said.