Malta’s LNG Floating Storage Unit Ready for Work
Image Courtesy: Malta Department of Information/Jeremy WonnacottA sail-away ceremony for the Floating Storage Unit (FSU) Armada LNG Mediterrana, which will be dispatched in the coming days to Malta, was held at Keppel Shipyard’s facilities in Singapore on August 1.
Owned by Malaysia-based offshore oil & gas services provider Bumi Armada, the 125,582 cbm Armada LNG Mediterrana is expected to arrive in Malta in September.
The 1985-built vessel, previously named Wakaba Maru, will provide storage facility and supply gas to the country’s new Delimara LNG import facilities.
The Floating Storage Unit is scheduled to be permanently moored by a jetty near the Delimara power station and deliver LNG on a continuous basis, without dry-docking interruption, during the entire project life of 18 years, to the onshore regasification plant feeding natural gas to the 400 MW power station.
The conversion project of the first generation Moss LNG Carrier, which lasted for 17 months, was part of a USD 300 million contract signed between Bumi Armada and ElectroGas Malta Limited (EGM) in April 2015.
“This will be the project which will not only complete the turnaround of Malta’s energy sector, but which will be also ensuring that our electricity prices remain low and sustainable; that our electricity supply, at the periphery of the European continent, remains secure, and which meets the ever-growing electricity demand which reflects an ever-growing and strong Maltese economy,” Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
