New Fortress Energy has fixed one of its floating storage and regasification units to Dutch energy company Gasunie.
US-listed New Fortress said it has signed a binding agreement to charter an FSRU to Nederlandse Gasunie for a five-year period starting from the third quarter.
The unit will provide storage and regasification capacity for Gasunie’s new LNG import terminal the Eems Energy Terminal at Eemshaven in the Netherlands.
The FSRU will provide storage capacity of about 170,000 cbm of LNG with peak regasification capacity of 900 MMscfd.
The only FSRU of this size listed by New Fortress as “open” in its fleet is the 170,000-cbm Golar Igloo (built 2014), which has previously been deployed on a seasonal basis in Kuwait.
New Fortress, which did not name the vessel, said it will work in tandem with a third party’s FSRU to provide up to 8bn cbm per year of total regas capacity.
Belgium’s Exmar announced in March that it had fixed its barge-based, 25,000-cbm FSRU S188 (built 2017) to Gasunie LNG Holdings for five years, adding that it would be deployed as a floating LNG import terminal at Eemshaven from the end of the third quarter of 2022.
In a first-quarter results briefing this month, managing director Andrew Dete said New Fortress had two open FSRUs today in its existing seven-unit regas fleet and has started works on one of two LNG carriers earmarked conversion into an FSRU.
New Fortress, which is advancing its own floating LNG production plans for the US Gulf, said its FSRU for Gasunie will increase energy security for the Netherlands, creating sufficient import capacity to meet its gas needs without relying on pipeline imports, including gas from Russia.
“The vessel will provide a core component of Gasunie’s Eems Energy Terminal which will immediately address the urgent energy security needs of the Netherlands and surrounding region as the US-EU Task Force on Energy Security continues to implement the March 25 joint statement by Presidents Biden and von der Leyen,” the company said.
The binding FSRU charter agreement is subject to the execution of definitive documentation, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
New Fortress chief executive Wes Edens said: “We look forward to a successful, long-term partnership with Gasunie and see other areas for collaboration to enhance energy security and accelerate energy transition in Europe.”
Gasunie executive board member Ulco Vermeulen said: “This decisive cooperation with [New Fortress] enables us to increase the security of supply of natural gas in the Netherlands from Eemshaven ... as early as this autumn.
“This new terminal capacity will increase energy security for the Netherlands and north-west Europe and create additional LNG import capacity to reduce dependence on Russian gas.
“With this expansion of the terminal we will be able to facilitate the high demand for LNG supply in the market in the next five years.”
