Venture Bayou was sailing on Thursday morning in the North Sea, Germany, and was located not far from Wilhelmshaven, its AIS data provided by VesselsValue shows.
Data by Niedersachsen Ports shows that the vessel is expected to dock at the FSRU-based LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven at 20:15h CET on Thursday and depart two days after it unloads the shipment.
The 170,000-cbm FSRU Hoegh Esperanza, owned by Norway’s Hoegh Evi and chartered by the German government, serves DET’s first Wilhelmshaven facility.
To remind, Venture Global said on December 27 that the first Plaquemines LNG commissioning cargo will be delivered to Germany’s EnBW, marking over 60 LNG cargoes sent from Venture Global into Germany since 2022.
EnBW is also one of the long-term offtakers for LNG volumes for the Plaquemines plant.
Venture Bayou’s AIS data previously showed that the vessel was heading to Germany’s Brunsbüttel, where DET’s second FSRU-based facility is located.
Last month, state-owned German LNG terminal operator DET allocated six regasification slots for the first quarter of 2025 at its FSRU-based terminals in Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel.
EnBW probably booked a slot during DET’s latest marketing round to receive the first commissioning cargo from Plaquemines LNG.
DET declined to comment to LNG Prime regarding the booking and the Venture Bayou shipment.
Second Plaquemines LNG shipment
Besides this shipment, Venture Global recently shipped the second commissioning cargo from its Plaquemines plant.
Venture Global’s 174,000-cbm newbuild carrier, Venture Gator, left the company’s second facility in Port Sulphur on Sunday, its AIS data showed.
Venture Gator also appears to be heading to Europe.
Venture Global recently received approval from the US FERC to export the first commissioning cargo from its Plaquemines LNG plant.
The approval came just a week after Venture Global started producing LNG at the company’s second facility.
With this, Plaquemines LNG became the eighth US LNG export facility.
Venture Global said in its recent IPO statement it is targeting a COD (commercial operations date) for the Plaquemines project in the third quarter of 2026 for Phase 1 and the second quarter of 2027 for Phase 2.
In May 2022, Venture Global took a final investment decision on the first phase of the Plaquemines project with a capacity of 13.3 mtpa and the related pipeline. It also secured $13.2 billion in project financing.
After that, the company sanctioned the second phase of the Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana and also secured $7.8 billion in project financing.
The full project, including the second stage, will have a capacity of 20 mtpa coming from 36 modular units, configured in 18 blocks.
Each train has a capacity of 0.626 mtpa.
