Massive ship-to-ship LNG transfer starts in Turkey

By Ibrahim Erikan

ANKARA

Turkey started one of the world's biggest ship-to-ship Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) transfers on Wednesday in the mediterranean port of Dortyol, Mehmet Tecimen, oil utilities regional director of Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) announced.

"This [BOTAS's Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) vessel anchored in Dortyol] is the largest FSRU ship in the world at 345 meters in length," Tecimen said during a press briefing.

In February 2018, Turkey launched this second FSRU with 20 million cubic meters of send-out capacity per day in the Dortyol port. The unit has 263,000 cubic meters of LNG storage capacity, the largest capacity worldwide.

Tecimen said the 315-meter-long Al Sadd vessel, which brings LNG from Qatar to the Dortyol terminal, has a capacity of 206,000 cubic meters.

Tecimen said that the two ships, which are the largest in their fields, will take two days to conduct the world's largest ship-to-ship LNG transfer operation in which natural gas converted from LNG will be injected into Turkey's natural gas pipeline system.

Turkey's first FSRU was launched in Aliaga, Izmir in December 2016 at a time when the country needed extra gas capacity to meet increased consumption due to the very cold weather conditions at that time.

The country aims to reduce dependency on pipeline gas through FSRUs, and therefore, these units dock at ports close to regions with higher gas demand.