Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) has signed a letter of intent with Russia’s State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) for the potential acquisition of 49% of the shares of the floating storage unit (FSU) owner companies, which are currently 100% owned by GTLK, in relation to the huge LNG transhipment projects in Kamchatka and Murmansk.
The FSUs earlier entered into bareboat charter agreements with Arctic Transshipment, a joint venture of Novatek and TotalEnergies, that will provide transhipment services to Novatek’s LNG projects by reloading LNG cargoes from ice-class LNG carriers to conventional LNG carriers.
Two FSUs with the world’s largest storage capacity of about 360,000 cu m will be placed at Bechevinskaya Bay in Kamchatka and Ura Bay at Murmansk. The two FSUs are currently being constructed at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in South Korea. MOL has been supporting the construction from the technical and engineering perspective, in particular the basic design, plan approval and site supervision works.
