A second jack-up rig which has been converted into one of the elements of New Fortress Energy’s first floating LNG (FLNG) production unit has left a US shipyard for Mexico.
Poten & Partners senior LNG analyst Sergio Chapa posted tracking data that showed the NFE Pioneer 1 left the Kiewit Offshore Services shipyard in Ingleside, Texas on Thursday.
This unit, which is one of three that will make up New Fortress’ 1.4 million tonnes per annum Fast LNG 1 project, houses the gas processing module.
A first jack-up rig conversion, NFE Pioneer III with the project’s main control room and accommodation block onboard, left the US yard on 28 July and has since arrived on site in Altamira on Mexico’s east coast.
The FLNG producer will be fed with pipeline gas and will use New Fortress’ 160,000-cbm Penguin FSU (ex-Golar Penguin, built 2014) as the floating storage unit for this first FLNG vessel.
The schedule for the delivery of the units has been slipping back.
New Fortress was originally targeting a start-up for the novel FLNG project in August.
In a first half results call that month chief financial officer Chris Guinta said the FLNG unit would start commercial operations by the end of the third quarter.
At the time Guinta said NFE Pioneer 1 would be installed by 23 August followed by the Pioneer II, which is fitted with the cold box for the unit’s liquefaction, on 28 August.
In a separate announcement today New Fortress Energy’s emerging hydrogen production arm ZeroParks has signed a deal to supply green hydrogen from 2025 to Dutch methanol and ammonia producer OCI Global.
OCI, which has started supplying bunker fuels to the marine industry, said the deal, which follows a competitive bidding process, will allow it to significantly scale up green ammonia production capacity to approximately 160,000 tonnes per year in Beaumont, Texas.
It said the green hydrogen will be produced by ZeroParks, NFE’s hydrogen business, using proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology and delivered to OCI’s facilities in Beaumont, Texas where it will then be converted into green ammonia.
NFE’s first green hydrogen project, ZeroPark I, will come online in two phases; the first phase in 2025, allowing OCI to produce approximately 80,000 tonnes per year of green ammonia and the second, in 2026, doubling OCI’s production capacity to 160,000 tonnes per year.
OCI, which highlighted that green hydrogen can also be used to produce green methanol, said the deal complements its large-scale blue ammonia project in Texas for 2025 start-up which can use green hydrogen as a feedstock it increase its green ammonia production capabilities.
New Fortress chairman and chief executive Wes Edens, who has said he plans to spin off ZeroParks as a separate entity, said the deal shows the company’s focus on developing green hydrogen projects of scale to successfully decarbonise hard-to-abate corners of the global economy such as agriculture, power, and marine fuels.
