Floating LNG provider Golar LNG’s unit has been manoeuvred onto its permanent location at BP’s Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) project on the Mauritania and Senegal maritime border.
Project sources told TradeWinds that mooring work for the 2.3-million tonne per annum capacity FLNG unit Gimi should be completed this week.
The unit, which was converted from an LNG carrier in Singapore, is being permanently moored to the breakwater built for the project. It arrived off-site in early January.
But the floating production storage and offloading unit for the GTA project remains in Tenerife at present undergoing modification work.
TradeWinds understands that the FPSO, which will take in gas from reservoirs 120 km offshore and process it, is now due to be installed in early May.
After this the FPSO needs to be connected by pipeline to the FLNG Gimi where the gas can be liquefied before being exported.
LNG production is now scheduled to start up before the end of this year much later than originally planned.
GTA project watchers said Golar has been keen to get its FLNG unit delivered and handed over to BP so that it can start to receive payments from the energy major under the charterparty for the floater.
Golar said in 2023 that it had entered arbitration with BP over “a contract-interpretation dispute relating to parts of the pre-commissioning contractual cash flows remains”.
Announcing Gimi’s move onto the site, BP said: “The FLNG vessel, Gimi, is at the heart of the GTA Phase 1 development, operated by bp with partners, Kosmos Energy, Petroshen and SMH.”
GTA Phase 1 is set to produce around 2.3 mtpa of LNG for over 20 years.
BP senior vice president for Mauritania and Senegal Emil Ismayilov said: “The successful and safe arrival of the FLNG vessel is another step forward for GTA Phase 1.”
Ismayilov added: “The people behind the project have delivered through many challenges, including the pandemic, to orchestrate a major feat of engineering.
“We are fully focused on safely completing the project and beginning a new energy chapter in Mauritania and Senegal.”
