Golar LNG looks set to achieve commercial acceptance of its first LNG carrier to floating LNG (FLNG) production unit with the export of the first cargo from its Cameroon floater Hilli Episeyo.
Visiting LNG carrier, the 146,000-cbm Galicia Spirit (built 2006) left the unit Wednesday carrying a full cargo.
The vessel is heading to China with a shipment for PetroChina.
Gazprom Marketing & Trading (GM&T) has bought the 1.2-million-tonnes-per-annum output from the first two of the Hilli Episeyo’s four production trains.
A second cargo is due to start loading from the floater towards the end of this month.
This week's cargo from Hilli Episeyo makes LNG history as the first commercial cargo to be produced and exported from an LNG carrier-to-FLNG unit conversion.
Golar, which is chasing a number of other FLNG projects with similar LNG carrier conversion concepts, was aiming to achieve commercial start-up from Hilli Episeyo before the end of March.
The company has been subject to late delivery payments of around $100,000 per day on the unit since mid-April.
