Energy company Gasum has shipped in its second LNG cargo to Finland’s floating storage and regasification-based terminal in what the company said is a “challenging situation”.
Gasum said its cargo arrived alongside the 150,900-cbm FSRU Exemplar (built 2010) in Inkoo on Sunday 5 November and the discharge of the volumes have started.
The LNG was shipped in on the 147,835-cbm Arctic Princess (built 2006), which loaded its cargo from Equinor’s volumes in Norway.
Gasum said this is the second LNG cargo that it has delivered to the Inkoo-based FRSU — which started a 10-year time charter to Finland in 2022 — since the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia suffered a rupture and was shut down in early October.
The Balticconnector subsea gas pipeline was ruptured on 8 October. Finnish police are investigating a Chinese container ship, which is suspected of causing the damage by dragging its anchor on the seabed.
Gasum said repair of the pipeline is expected to take at least five months, with all Finnish natural gas demand needing to be met through imports of LNG in the interim.
Jouni Liimatta, head of trading and optimising at Gasum, said: “We are working hard to secure supply of natural gas over the coming winter season to our customers, whose operations depend on a steady supply of gas.
“It is a challenging situation, but we already have experience from rebuilding our pipeline natural gas supply chain after natural gas imports from Russia were suspended in 2022.”
Gasum said it has reserved three more slots at the Inkoo FSRU for the upcoming winter season, which it said will ensure that the company can meet the natural gas demand of its customers until spring 2024.
“In the coming months, the Inkoo FSRU will also be equipped with the technical capability to load LNG from the terminal further into smaller bunkering vessels, improving the flexibility of cargo utilisation,” the company said.
