India’s first floating storage and regasification unit-based liquefied natural gas import project is finally closing in on start-up with the unit destined for H-Energy’s Jaigarh scheme enroute from Keppel Shipyard in Singapore. The Hoegh Giant FSRU underwent minor modifications following its previous charter with Naturgy while Keppel also pre-completed the vessel’s five-year periodic class survey, originally scheduled for 2022, thereby improving efficiency and reducing costs.
The vessel departed Singapore last Thursday and is expected to arrive within the week at Jaigarh in Maharashtra on India’s west coast with commissioning to be performed in April, according to H-Energy. The FSRU terminal will allow for the replacement of coal consumption with natural gas at a scale which reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to approximately 120 million tonnes, nitrous oxide emissions by approximately 97% and sulphur oxide emissions by approximately 99% over the 10-year period lease term, assuming average imports of 3 million tonnes per annum.
Hoegh Giant will be the first FSRU operating in India and will deliver natural gas to the 57-kilometre Jaigarh-Dabhol pipeline connecting the LNG import terminal to the national gas grid. The facility will also deliver LNG for onshore distribution through LNG truck loading facilities, as well as reloading LNG onto small-scale LNG vessels for downstream distribution or LNG bunker services.
H-Energy has chartered the FSRU for a 10-year contract that has annual termination options after year five. The 2017-built Hoegh Giant has storage capacity of 170,000 cubic metres and peak regasification capacity of 750 million cubic feet per day (equivalent to about 6 million tpa).
Joint development roadmap
“A roadmap with H-Energy also includes the joint development of the downstream small-scale LNG market in the region, using the FSRU as the terminal for storage and reloading to smaller vessels,” Hoegh LNG chief executive Sveinung Stohle recently said.
H-Energy’s Jaigarh LNG import project is to be implemented in two phases. Phase one consists of the 5 million tpa jetty-based FSRU, while the second phase envisages an onshore terminal with an ultimate capacity of 8 million tpa.The terminal will be implemented after the successful completion and stabilisation of phase one.
High growth market
“India is a high-growth market, and we see clear potential for Hoegh LNG to provide additional FSRUs and clean energy solutions to this market over the coming years,” added Stohle.
