A first LNG ship-to-ship (STS) operation has been completed in Myanmar after the arrival of a third gas carrier to the new project.
The 19,474-cbm Surya Aki (built 1996) discharged a cargo to the 28,000-cbm newbuilding CNTIC VPower Global, which arrived on site off the Thanlyin LNG power facility last month loaded with a Petronas cargo.
The CNTIC VPower Global is moored to a purpose-built floating mobile filling platform (MFP) and is serving as a floating storage unit for the project in the Gulf of Martaban.
The STS operation is understood to have been carried out by Singapore’s LNG Easy, which also built and supplied the MFP — a moored barge, Eastern Orbit.
Mystery surrounds how a cargo for project developer CNTIC VPower that previously arrived offshore on board the 162,000-cbm Golar Kelvin (built 2015) is to be handled, as the ship's draught would appear to be too great for it to access the offloading facilities in the Yangon River. The Golar Kelvin has since moved off and was last seen off Phuket in Thailand.
The logistics of the recently started Myanmar LNG imports are slowly emerging.
The developer has settled on a combination of an FSU with an MFP. The LNG is discharged to the barge-based platform, from where it is sent ashore for regasification.
The natural gas is being used to supply three power plants — the 400MW Thaketa, 350MW Thanlyin and 150MW Kyaukphyu. The Thaketa plant is operational and testing is about to start at Thanlyin.
On 15 June, TradeWinds revealed that the developers had also bought a former North West Shelf LNG carrier, the 127,363-cbm Northwest Seaeagle (renamed CNTIC VPower Energy, built 1992).
TradeWinds has learned that the vessel, which had originally been bought by Turkish powership owner Karadeniz Group for less than $20m, was sold to CNTIC VPower for $28m. The CNTIC VPower Energy is undergoing work in Singapore.
Industry observers following the project speculate that the Golar Kelvin is waiting for the bigger vessel to arrive and suggest this would then serve as a larger storage base for LNG.
CNTIC VPower is a joint venture between Chinese engineering, procurement and development contractor CNTIC and power generation system developer VPower Group.
