MOL agrees to continue FSRU project in Uruguay

Mitsui OSK Lines informed that it has reached an agreement with Gas Sayago of Uruguay to continue working on the country’s floating storage and regasification unit project.

MOL revealed in a statement that the Uruguayan government recently decided to cancel its deal with GNLS, a 50/50 joint venture between Japan’s Marubeni and France’s Engie, for the provision of an FSRU.

The initial terminal usage agreement was signed in October 2013 between GNLS and Gas Sayago created by National Administration of Power Generation (UTE) and Transmission and National Administration of Fuels, Alcohol and Portland Cement (ANCAP) on a 50/50 basis, and was scheduled to commence commercial operation of the initial phase in July 2015.

Gas Sayago already faced a five months delay on the project as Constructora OAS, a Brazilian company that was hired to build a breakwater and wharfs for the terminal pulled out of the deal in February. However, the company’s president Cesar Briozzo said in July that civil works for its $1.1 billion LNG regasification terminal project are set to start and that all other works on the project are on schedule.

Under the new deal, MOL will own and operate the vessel that is currently under construction at South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. This is the first FSRU project in which MOL will solely build, own, and operate the facility.

The vessel with a storage capacity of 263,000 cbm is set to be operational mid-2017.

Image: GNLS