Pakistan's Second FSRU Named

Singapore-based shipowner BW Group said January 15 a naming event was held three days earlier for BW Integrity, its second floating LNG terminal (or FSRU), at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard.

BW signed a 15-year agreement enabling Pakistan GasPort Limited to use the FSRU in August 2016. Deliveries to this 600mn ft³/d capacity FSRU are scheduled to begin this June, with state Pakistan LNG expected to open bids for the supply of its LNG on January 19.

BW Integrity will be Pakistan’s second FSRU; the first having been Excelerate-run Exquisite which began operations in March 2015. Both are based at Port Qasim near Karachi, as will be a third as yet unnamed FSRU from Hoegh LNG expected to start operating in 2Q2018.

In a note to BW and PGP, Pakistan’s petroleum and natural resources minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the Pakistan GasPort terminal at Port Qasim “will more than double Pakistan's LNG regasification capacity to over 1.2bn ft³/d [9mn metric tons/yr]".

BW Singapore, partway into a five-year charter to Egypt’s state Egas at the Red Sea port of Ain Sokhna, was BW’s very first FSRU to be deployed.

BW Singapore moored alongside another FSRU, Hoegh Gallant, at Egypt's Red Sea port of Ain Sokhna (Photo credit: Hoegh LNG)

PGP chairman Iqbal Z. Ahmed said that BW Integrity was vital to his company’s plan to reduce Pakistan’s gas deficit, provide fuel for 3.6-GW of new power-generation capacity, and yield an estimated $1.5bn in annual foreign-exchange savings.

Mark Smedley