Bumi Armada Achieves First LNG in Malta
Bumi Armada Berhad, Malaysia-based international offshore energy facilities and services provider has announced that its liquefied natural gas (LNG) floating storage unit (FSU), Armada LNG Mediterrana, has achieved its first LNG in Malta last week, on January 16, 2017.
This project represents the company’s maiden floating LNG project and heralds the start of a partnership between ElectroGas Malta Limited (EGM) and Bumi Armada in delivering energy resource that leads to a lower carbon future, cleaner air in metropolitan areas, and a prosperous economic future for the people of Malta. This partnership began with a 18-year and two-months charter of the FSU with EGM. The contract signed on April 13, 2015 has an expected aggregated value of approximately $300 million.
“When we first started the discussions on the Malta LNG project, many in the industry believed that Malta’s gas demand was not sufficiently substantial for the project to be economical. Together with EGM, we have proved that the project can make economic sense and be competitive. Bumi Armada is well placed to leverage on its expertise in floating production systems to bring competitive solutions to its clients” said Leon Harland, Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer of Bumi Armada.
The FSU installed in Malta will receive, store and dispatch LNG will serve the Delimara power station. It involved the conversion of a first-generation Moss LNG Carrier of 125,000m³ storage capacity into a FSU. The project execution phase included two million man-hours of work without any lost time incident (LTI), which is a testament to the high level of safety awareness and focus by the execution team.
The FSU is moored to a jetty near the Delimara power station. During the 18-year project life, the unit will deliver LNG on a continuous basis and without any dry-docking interruption to an onshore regasification plant, which will then feed natural gas to the 400MW base load power station.