LNG

Turkish floating power producer Karpowership will deploy a 250-MW gas-fired powership alongside a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula under a three-year agreement with grid operator CENACE. Both vessels are expected to arrive in the coming week, due for immediate commissioning.

Singapore’s Seatrium Ltd has secured a contract from Turkey’s Karpowership to convert eight LNG carriers into Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs), with work set to begin in the third quarter of 2026.

A maiden LNG cargo has arrived at the 125,000 cubic meter KARMOL LNGT Powership Africa, moored off the Senegalese capital Dakar since June 2021. Arrival of the first cargo – onboard a TotalEnergies-chartered tanker – helps the African nation to convert several power stations from oil to natural gas.

KARMOL, a joint venture between Karpowership and Mitsui OSK Lines, is for long active in Senegal: the Turkish company is already operating a 235 MW powership since August 2019, which covers around 15% of the country’s electricity needs.

Technically speaking, KARMOL’s technique of regasifying LNG onboard a specially designed FSRU for direct use in a Karpowership helps accelerate the roll-out of LNG-to-Power projects in countries with no domestic gas resources.

Going forward, the Turkish-Japanese joint venture wants to convert its entire fleet of Powerships to LNG. To that end, the JV already has another FSRU under construction which will be released shortly and is destined to be deployed offshore Mozambique.

Gokhan Kocak, KARMOL board member, said the company has a “bold ambition” to offer LNG to Power across the world and especially within Africa. “The usage of FSRUs mean we can unlock the benefits of clean and affordable electricity for millions of people, even where countries have no domestic gas production or infrastructure,” he explained.

Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., the Brazilian major known as Petrobras, has signed an accord with Turkey’s Karpowership to combine their expertise to expand projects in Brazil in the floating liquefied natural gas, regasification and liquefaction sectors.

Seatrium of Singapore, the shipyard engineering company, aims to continue with its liquefied natural gas project successes with a large book of projects to work on through 2025.

Seatrium has secured a series of major contracts with an aggregate value of S$350 million (US$259M), to be completed by the end 2025, reinforcing its reputation as a market leader in vessel repairs, upgrades and conversions.

Seatrium, formerly called Sembcorp Marine Ltd and renamed as Seatrium following its merger with Keppel Offshore & Marine, is moving forward in the sector after big LNG delivery highlights in 2023.

These included the successful delivery in November 2023 of the Greek floating storage and regasification unit, the “FSRU Alexandroupolis”, now deployed offshore northeast Greece as part of a Balkans LNG supply hub.

African FLNG

Seatrium also in November last year handed over the LNG production unit for the BP-led FLNG project offshore Senegal and Mauritania in West Africa and also involving Dallas-based US company Kosmos Energy.

The group said that the diverse range of complex contracts secured by the Seatrium Repairs and Upgrades unit and currently being worked on or being prepared for include upgrades and conversions of FSRUs, life-extension and remediation works for floating production systems as well as repairs to conventional LNG carriers

“We thank our customers for their confidence in Seatrium’s capabilities and for entrusting us with these important projects,” said Alvin Gan, Executive Vice President of Seatrium Repairs and Upgrades.

“With our expertise and extensive track records, we are committed to deliver safe, timely and reliable projects to our customers,” he stated.

The backlog of FSRU conversions involves three LNG Carriers (LNGC) being converted to FSRUs for Turkish company Karpowership, with an option for a fourth project.

“The conversion work involves installing a regasification skid, as well as other supporting systems such as cargo, utility, spread-mooring, offloading, electrical, and automation systems,” Seatrium explained.

This work is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2024 and involves the vessels “Karmol LNGT Powership Africa”, “Karmol LNGT Powership Asia” and “Karmol LNGT Powership Europe”.

“This work reinforces the group's position as a pioneer and market leader in the highly specialised FSRU conversion market,” Seatrium added.

LNG dry-dockings

A series of LNG carriers will also be dry-docking in Singapore under a “favoured customer contract” with Hyundai LNG Shipping of South Korea

Vessel life extension, upgrade and remediation and maintenance also involves customers like Japan’s MODEC with a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit, the “Pyrenees Venture”, for Australian LNG operator and oil and gas player Woodside Energy.

“The vessel is expected to be re-deployed back into production off the coast of Western Australia,” Seatrium said.

The Singaporean company has also attracted business for its successful Cruise Ship Refurbishments yard.

“We have vessel retrofits for a series of 10 cruise vessels from our long-term partners, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Group, in 2024,” Seatrium added.

Karpowership, the Turkish company with fast-track solutions for electricity projects such as LNG-for-power, was a major winner in a 2,000 megawatt (MW) tender launched by the South African Government to ease the nation’s power outages only to see three projects now refused environmental permits.

Turkish maritime infrastructure provider Karpowership has brought the world's first LNG-to-Power floating project into operation offshore Amurang in North Sulawesi in Indonesia as the vessel, the 125-megawatt “Powership Zeynep Sultan”, started generating electricity.

The “Powership Zeynep Sultan” was built to 1984 and originally operated on Marine Fuel Oil (MFO) but has recently been converted to have its engines and generators converted to dual-fuel with LNG capability.

“Our first LNG-to-power project is a success, the engines on ‘Powership Zeynep Sultan’ are beginning to run on LNG thanks to our supply from a partner’s floating storage and regasification unit,” said Karpowership.

“We aim to have 80 percent of our fleet running on LNG by 2025, providing more economic and environmental value to our partners,” said the Turkish company.

Karpowership is a subsidiary of the Turkish industrial group, Karadeniz Holding, whose Chief Executive is Orhan Remzi Karadeniz.

The Karpowership unit operates 25 floating power plants in about a dozen countries around the world and the Indonesian venture is the first in operating using LNG.

The LNG offshore Amurang is being converted via a small-scale floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the 14,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Hua Xiang 8”, according to shipping data.

The small-scale FSRU was constructed in China in 2017 at the Qidong Fengshun yard for Zhejiang Huaxiang, a Chinese liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market player with plans to build up a fleet of coastal LNG carriers of various sizes.

The FSRU is now working for PT Sulawesi Regas Satu, a joint venture comprising the government-owned utility company Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) and Indonesian shipping company PT Humpuss, which said earlier in 2020 it was acquiring the Chinese FSRU.

The LNG-to-Power project has a gas supply agreement signed with Indonesian power company PLN and with volumes provided via Pertamina, the Indonesian stated-owned oil and natural gas company.

“Through our Powership’s dual-fuel engine capability, combined with the innovation of FSRU technology, we are able to offer a seamless transition to LNG-to-Power for our partners in Amurang,” Karpowership’s Chief Commercial Officer Zeynep Harezi.