A barge-based floating storage and regasification unit designed for Indonesia’s Bali LNG import project is being prepared for commissioning, but demand is emerging from other potential users.
The 26,000-cbm FSRU Karunia Dewata is due to be delivered from Kuok Group-controlled PaxOcean Engineering Zhoushan shipyard in China to South Korean-Indonesian joint venture Jaya Samudra Karunia (JSK) this quarter.
The unit, which has no propulsion, was ordered for Benoa LNG on the island of Bali to upgrade an existing solution that currently uses a floating regasification unit (FRU) in combination with a vessel serving as a floating storage unit (FSU).
Those working closely with the newbuilding say it is unclear, as yet, whether the new FSRU barge will deliver to Bali as interest has been received from another project developer in Indonesia.
JSK senior managers were unavailable for comment before TradeWinds' press time.
The Karunia Dewata, which is the first barge-based FSRU to be purpose-built for a project, is fitted with four, 6,500-cbm Type-C cargo tanks and has capacity to regasify around 600 million standard cubic feet per day.
The aim was to use the mini-FSRU to replace the FRU, which was also specially built in South Korea to kick-off the project, and any vessel serving as an FSU for the Bali venture.
Indonesian shipowner Humpuss Intermoda Transportasi’s 23,096-cbm LNG carrier Triputra (ex-Surya Satsuma, built 2000) has been shuttling cargoes into the FSU from when operations began in April 2016.
LNG is transferred from the FSU to the FRU and sent ashore to supply the Pesanggaran gas and diesel power plant in Denpasar in the south of Bali.
To date, Exmar is the only other company that has taken the barge route for an FSRU.
The company built a 26,320-cbm unit fitted with two 13,160-cbm, SPB-type cargo tanks on speculation at Wison Offshore & Marine in China. The regas barge is currently being modified in Singapore for a charter with trader Gunvor, under which it will be stationed in Bangladesh.
