A floating storage and regasification unit is being towed back to its base in Italy after five months away for repair and maintenance work at two separate shipyards.
Vessel owner and manager OLT Offshore LNG Toscana said the extraordinary maintenance activities of the FSRU Toscana have been completed.
The regas unit left Marseille under tow on Monday.
It is due back on site on 2 October, around 22 km off the coast between Livorno and Pisa, where it was previously moored.
OLT said that during the following weeks, preparatory activities to reconnect the anchoring system and systems connecting the unit to the national gas network will be carried out.
The FSRU, which has a maximum authorised regasification capacity of 5bn cbm per year, will then be cooled down with the discharge of an LNG cargo before commercial operations can restart.
On Tuesday, OLT outlined a tender procedure for a supplier that would be able to discharge 30,000 mcliq of LNG — the company’s own measurement of regasification capacity, which it said is equivalent to about 200,000 MWh — for cool-down and gas-up activities.
Offers are due in by 10 October. The restart of commercial operations is currently scheduled for 24 November.
OLT said in April that the FSRU, which originally started work off Italy in December 2013, would resume operations from mid-October.
The FSRU underwent the first part of its maintenance job in Genoa in June.
It was then moved to the Chantier Naval of San Giorgio del Porto in Marseille to undergo work to aim the bearings of its anchoring system, which ensures the rotation of the FSRU around its geostationary turret that is permanently anchored to the seabed.
OLT Offshore LNG Toscana is controlled by Snam and Igneo Infrastructure Partners.
