Russian oil and gas producer Gazprom Neft has ordered a small-scale LNG carrier to advance its plans for marine bunkering at its upcoming Portovaya LNG project in Russia.
TradeWinds understands the company — a subsidiary of gas giant Gazprom — has confirmed a 5,800-cbm, ice-class 1A vessel with Keppel Shipyard in Singapore.
Full details have yet to emerge but the ship is expected to be scheduled for delivery at the end of 2020 or in 2021.
Those following the project say the vessel will be used to supply LNG as bunkers from the Portovaya LNG project.
This is a mid-scale LNG export plant that will be built on Russia’s Baltic Sea coast, jointly developed by Gazprom and Russian engineering company SRDI Oil & Gas Peton.
Portovaya will use pipeline gas to produce 1.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, with a start-up planned in 2020.
In connection with this, trading arm Gazprom Marketing & Trading has bought the 138,107-cbm LNG carrier Excel (built 2003) for use as a floating storage unit to serve the project.
The Excel is currently under conversion in Dubai shipyard Drydocks World, where it has been renamed Portovyy. The FSU is due to emerge at the end of March or early in the second quarter of 2019.
The 15-year-old, membrane-type vessel will undergo life-extension work and will have steel plates changed to strengthen its hull to allow it to work in ice.
The converted unit will be moored behind a breakwater near the town of Vyborg and take on cargoes produced by the plant until they are ready to be offloaded onto visiting vessels.
The FSU will be capable of loading and discharging simultaneously, and is being designed to remain onsite for 20 years.
Longer-term plans for Portovaya include building onshore LNG storage.
Gazprom Neft is planning to start selling LNG as bunkers and has said it wants to build up a fleet of LNG bunker vessels.
