Petrobras Ends FSRU Charter Early

Petrobras is ending the charter of the world's first floating LNG import terminal a little over one year early.

Shipowner Golar LNG Partners said December 27 they received a notice from charterer Petrobras of early termination of the Golar Spirit charter. The charter end date will now be June 21, 2017, having originally been August 2018. In accordance with the terms of the charter, Petrobras will pay a compensation fee representing 62% of the earnings before interest, other financial items, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) remaining under the contract from June 21, 2017 to the original contract end date.

Built 1981, Golar Spirit was converted to become the world's floating regasification and storage unit (FSRU) eight years ago and arrived in Pecem, Brazil in mid-2008 and was fully commissioned in 2009. Its regasification capacity is just 2.5bn m³/yr. Newer FSRUs can regasify up to three times as much.

Golar Spirit FSRU (Photo credit: Golar LNG)

The partnership said it will immediately commence re-marketing the vessel for employment post June 2017 and said there is currently significant interest and bidding activity in the FSRU market and also a limited number of FSRUs available for the next two years. It said that Golar Spirit, as a relatively small capacity FSRU could be well suited for a number of emerging smaller scale FSRU projects as well as a potential bridging solution for larger projects.

Mark Smedley