Japanese shipowner Mitsui OSK Line has won the business to provide a first floating storage and regasification unit for Polish energy company Gaz-System.
Those with knowledge of the business said MOL will order an FSRU at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries for the job.
The last regas unit contracted at the yard by Excelerate Energy in October 2022 was priced at $337m but brokers put today’s cost at closer to $350m.
Gaz-System said it will now continue negotiations of the terms of the FSRU time charter agreement with MOL.
The Polish company has previously said it planned to conclude a 15-year deal on the 6.1bn cbm capacity FSRU which will be put into operation off the Port of Gdansk.
Commissioning of the complete project is planned for 2027 to 2028 the company said.
In November, Gaz-System confirmed it had selected BW LNG and MOL as its two shortlisted providers following a tender for the FSRU business and was moving forward on negotiations on delivery dates and charter hire periods.
Industry players initially tipped BW LNG to snatch the work.
Gaz-System detailed MOL as having seven FSRUs in its current fleet.
Poland, which has had a land-based LNG import terminal in operation since 2015, was quick to sign up to a slew of US LNG volumes as it moved away from Russian pipeline gas.
Gaz-System, which will also build the FSRU’s mooring jetty and offshore pipeline, has committed to take all the capacity at the new unit.
The FSRU will be berthed at a mooring platform located about 3 km from the shore with some 250 km of transmission pipelines will be constructed as part of the project to link it to the grid and allow gas to reach central Poland.
Gaz-System vice president of the management board Andrzej Kensbok said: “The selection of the supplier of the LNG regasification unit is an important milestone in the implementation of the FSRU programme, which the company has been working on for many months.”
MOL senior managing executive officer for the Europe and Africa region Toshinobu Shinoda said the company is “committed to working closely with Gaz-System to deliver Poland’s first FSRU which would not only strengthen the energy security in Poland, but in the region in the long-term”.
