Swan Energy to commission India’s first newbuild FSRU this year

Indian conglomerate with interests in oil and gas Swan Energy is planning to commission India’s first newbuild floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) this year.

Swan Energy is leading the project of constructing and operating an LNG receiving terminal offshore of Jafrabad, Gujarat, India. The Jafrabad FSRU is India’s first newbuild FSRU project.

The company said its terminal has a regasification capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum (mmtpa) of LNG and is implemented in a phase-wise manner.

The first phase of the project includes LNG port facilities using an FSRU with a regasification capacity of five million tonnes per annum (mmtpa) and a floating storage unit (FSU) connected by ship-to-ship transfer equipment.

The terminal was supposed to be commissioned back in 2019. However, due to two cyclones in the region and the pandemic, it was delayed.

On 6 June 2022, Swan Energy told India Times it is planning to commission the FSRU this year, as the country looks to boost its LNG imports.

“We’re expecting the country’s LNG terminals to have a capacity of about 60 mmtpa in the next eight to 10 years. India, along with China and other countries, has to move towards a greener source of fuel. LNG, is the future’s fuel,” Vivek Merchant, general manager of the projects at the company, told the newspaper.

He also added that the company signed regasification agreements including with Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation covering the entire five mmtpa for 20 years.

To remind, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) built the 180,000 cbm Vasant 1 FSRU for Swan Energy in 2020. The Vasant 1 was the 10th FSRU that HHI constructed.