Snam said in a statement on Monday it had completed the installation of the second and final portion of the mooring platform (deck), in the waters off Ravenna.
The firm said completion of the infrastructural work needed to accommodate the FSRU is “substantially on schedule”, and the terminal will be in Italian waters by the end of the year and will be operational within the first quarter of 2025.
Once in service, it will provide Italy with an additional regasification capacity of 5 billion cubic meters per year, thus reaching 40 percent of the nation’s total gas demand.
Snam said this is in line with the diversification targets set two years ago during the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.
“LNG now covers a quarter of the national gas supply, and with the commissioning of BW Singapore, we will have volumes equal to what Italy was receiving from Russia in 2021, allowing for a further diversification of the system,” Snam CEO, Stefano Venier, said.
New phase
Snam said the morning deck covers a 54×48 meter surface, weighs 2,800 tonnes, and houses the structures necessary to control the flow of gas coming from the regasification terminal and to direct it toward land.
The installation took place in two phases – the first in October and the second in the past few days.
Now, a new phase begins until the end of the year, involving the installation of the last functional connection elements between the various portions of the deck, and the final welds connecting the steel pipe section running on the deck, with the underwater section, according to Snam.
The latter has already been laid down and connected with the portion built on the ground leading to the so-called Ravenna ‘node’, the gas access point of the national transmission grid.
Snam previously awarded a contract for the offshore facilities to compatriots Saipem and Rosetti Marino and Micoperi.
Since February 2024, work has been underway on the dismantling of the existing Petra platform, a phase that was followed, since mid-May, by the installation of the structures of the new mooring platform.
In addition, Spain’s Acciona, in a consortium with Italy’s RCM Costruzioni, recently secured a contract to build a breakwater to protect Snam’s upcoming FSRU-based LNG terminal located off the port of Ravenna.
1 billion euros
Snam said the Ravenna FSRU project is worth about 1 billion euros ($1.06 billion).
In December last year, Snam completed the purchase of BW LNG’s 2015-built FSRU BW Singapore for about $400 million.
Last year, the FSRU worked in Egypt under a charter with Egas which expired in November. After that, the vessel departed to Dubai, UAE.
The unit is still in a shipyard in Dubai for the necessary adjustments before its positioning on the coast opposite Marina di Ravenna.
