Estonia's LNG facility could receive up to 48 tankers per year

TALLINN – A floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) docked at the mooring quay currently under construction near the northwestern Estonian port town of Paldiski will be able to receive four liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers per month, or 48 tankers per year, operating round the clock without interruption. 

The FSRU will be moored at the quay, and next to it LNG tankers will dock, from which LNG will be piped to land via the FSRU and a gas pipeline in the sea, Marti Haal and Martti Talgre, members of the management board of Pakrineeme Port, say in a letter to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

In Pakrineeme Port, port services will be provided only to LNG tankers and FSRUs and their auxiliary vessels, such as tugs and pilots. There is one quay in the harbor with a length of 382 meters.

The FSRU and its crews will come from abroad and partial crew rotation is planned at a frequency of 2-3 times a month. Pakrineeme Port is therefore requesting to be included in the list of border crossing points open to international traffic, as the nearest border crossing points are located in the North and South ports of Paldiski, which are inconveniently far from Pakrineeme Port.

The FSRU will be docked at the port for a long period of time, and given its 24/7 operating cycle, the unit will not be able to relocate to another port for crew exchange border operations. 

Estonia's private Investment and energy companies Alexela and Infortar, which are responsible for the completion of the quay and port facilities at Pakrineeme Port, announced on Thursday that piling work at the mooring quay has been completed and on Friday the extension of the platform of the mooring quay will be handed over to the state-owned system operator Elering.

In the final phase of the large-scale works, the ship mooring pilings, or dolphins, will be built.