Turkey’s Botas Petroleum has appointed Wilhelmsen Ship Management to manage its first floating storage and regasification unit that was recently delivered by Hyundai Heavy Industries.
The Singapore-based shipmanager told TradeWinds it has completed the takeover of the 170,000-cbm newbuilding Ertugrul Gazi (built 2021), which is currently docked at the port of Dortyol in Iskenderun Bay.
Billed as the first ever Turkish-owned and flagged FSRU, the Ertugrul Gazi completed its sea trials off South Korea in March.
The FSRU, which has a regasification capacity of 28m cubic metres per day, will be connected to the Botas Dortyol LNG Terminal. It is expected to go into operation at the beginning of the second half of the year.
The ship is Botas' first owned FSRU. The state-owned oil and gas pipeline company previously chartered Mitsui OSK Lines' 263,000-cbm MOL FSRU Challenger (built 2017).
In late 2020, Turkish minister of energy and natural resources Fatih Donmez described the Ertugrul Gazi as one of Botas' largest investments.
Donmez said the FSRU would bring “significant flexibility to Turkey’s natural gas supply security”.
The Ertugrul Gazi is the second FSRU to come under Wilhelmsen management.
The company also manages Pardus Energy’s 170,000-cbm FSRU Turquoise P (built 2019), which serves as the unit for the Etki LNG project in Nemrut, near Aliaga, in which Etki Liman is partnered with Kolin Construction.
“It is an honour for us to be entrusted for the management of Turkey’s first Turkish-flagged FSRU,” Wilhelmsen president and chief executive Carl Schou said.
Turkey has been growing and diversifying its LNG imports alongside its pipeline supplies of natural gas.
