TradeWinds understands that the 173,400-cbm, M-type electronically-controlled, gas-injection (ME-GI) newbuilding, currently under construction as Hull No. 2416 at DSME in South Korea, will initially be employed as an FSU for one to two months per year, a period that could be extended in future.
The LNG carrier will be time-chartered to the project for a 20-year period but during the times it is not employed in a storage role it will return to the market for trading.
Bahrain is not the first LNG import project to opt for seasonal supplies. Kuwait National Petroleum Corp (KNPC) started a seasonal LNG import facility in 2009 that became a year-round import terminal for near-neighbour Kuwait four years later.
TEEKAY TEAMS UP
Teekay LNG Partners, working in consortium with Samsung C&T (Samsung) and Gulf Investment Corp (GIC), signed up with Bahrain’s The Oil and Gas Holding Company (Nogaholding) this month to develop the country’s first LNG import terminal.
The public-private partnership (PPP) project, which is to be constructed on a build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) basis, will be owned and operated through new joint venture Bahrain LNG, which will own and operate the terminal.
Teekay LNG Partners will supply the FSU vessel that will have an initial capacity of 400 million standard cubic feet per day (Mscfd) expandable to 800 Mscfd and will be owned and operated under a 20-year agreement. Regasification equipment will be located on a platform associated with the project’s jetty.
The developer has costed the project at $658m, excluding the time charter of the FSU.
Start-up is scheduled for July 2018.
