BW’s Pakistan FSRU in 100th STS LNG transfer

BW’s floating storage and regasification unit located in Pakistan’s Port Qasim recently completed its 100th ship-to-ship LNG transfer.

FSRU BW integrity, owned by Singapore’s gas shipping giant BW and Japan’s Mitsui, completed the milestone operation on June 6.

Since commissioning in 2018, the vessel has unloaded over 6.22 million tonnes of chilled fuel at Pakistan’s largest terminal in Qasim port, according to BW’s LNG unit.

The regasified LNG delivered to the national grid totals over 287 billion cubic feet, BW LNG said on Thursday.

The 170,000-cbm vessel serves Pakistan’s second LNG terminal under a long-term charter deal with Pakistan GasPort.

The country’s first terminal also located in Port Qasim started operations back in 2015 utilizing Exclerate’s FSRU Exquisite.

The US company will replace this unit with a larger newbuild as part of a deal signed in January.

Pakistan has been steadily increasing its LNG imports over the years and the country plans to build several more terminals to cope with gas shortages for power generation.

The country imported 8.10 million tonnes of the fuel last year, a rise of 18.1 per cent on year, GIIGNL data shows.

Qatar is the largest supplier of LNG to Pakistan but the country also receives chilled fuel from other Middle East producers and suppliers from other regions.

This year, demand in Pakistan has also been affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and some recent reports suggest that Pakistan delayed the delivery of several contracted Qatari LNG cargoes during April.