China’s Huarun Dadong yard said on Thursday it has recently completed the FSU conversion job in cooperation with South Korea’s HD Hyundai Marine Solution, a subsidiary of HD Hyundai Group.
“The vessel has set sail to Honduras to fulfill its new mission,” HRDD said.
According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, the 138,000-cbm Bilbao Knutsen arrived at the Shanghai yard in December 2024 and left it last week.
Bilbao Knutsen was on Thursday sailing in the South China Sea.
In August 2024, HD Hyundai Marine Solution announced a contract for one FSU conversion worth $30 million, saying the client was a European shipping company.
HD Hyundai Marine Solution said at the time that it plans to complete the contract by the first half of 2025.
London-based Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), who advised Honduras-based Genesis Energias on the chartering of Knutsen’s LNG carrier Bilbao Knutsen, revealed in December 2024 that HD Hyundai Marine Solution will convert the LNG carrier to an FSU.
WFW said the LNG carrier shall be used for the loading, storage, and discharging of LNG as part of the Genesis Energias LNG-to-power project in Honduras.
Genesis will import LNG internationally through the LNG terminal it is currently constructing in Puerto Cortes on Honduras’ Caribbean coast using the FSU for the onward transmission of LNG to the Brassavola thermal power plant.
The Genesis Energias website does not provide further information about the LNG-to-power project.
Honduras currently does not have LNG import facilities, so this project will add the country to the club of LNG importing nations.
