A first floating storage and regasification unit for Hong Kong is on the move to its new home but will deliver a cargo en route.
The 263,000 Bauhinia Spirit (ex-FSRU MOL Challenger, built 2017) left Singapore on Monday and is due to arrive in Incheon, South Korea, on 24 March.
Those following the vessel said it is due to arrive in Hong Kong in ballast before 10 April where it will start work as CLP Power’s LNG import terminal.
The Hong Kong Offshore LNG Terminal, which will be operated by the Castle Peak Power Co and The Hongkong Electric Co, will be located in the territory’s southern waters to the east of the Soko Islands.
It will distribute gas into the Black Point and Lamma power stations.
Energy major Shell is contracted to supply LNG to the facility.
The Bauhinia Spirit — the world’s largest FSRU — has been on charter to Singapore LNG while it awaited the delayed start-up of the Hong Kong project.
The Mitsui OSK Lines-owned vessel, in which Dutch tank terminals company Vopak has bought a 49.99% share, has not had the employment originally mapped out for it.
The vessel was built for a project in Uruguay that later collapsed and ‘Challenger’ — as it was often referred to by MOL employees working with the vessel — went on to work as an FSRU for Botas in Turkey, as a trading vessel and lately to provide storage in Singapore.
MOL won the Hong Kong job for the unit in 2018, with the FSRU originally due on site by late 2020.
The company is believed to have inked a charter deal on the vessel covering up a 13-year period with an option to extend this for a further five years.
Once on location, MOL and Vopak will jointly operate the FSRU.
The pair have said they plan to explore further downstream opportunities for bunkering of LNG as a marine fuel in Hong Kong.
