Gazprom Uses Replacement Vessel to Maintain Gas Loadings

Russia's Gazprom is using a replacement vessel for ship-to-ship loadings (STS) of liquefied natural gas from its Portovaya LNG plant on the Baltic Sea while another ship is repaired, LSEG data showed on Monday.

The floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) Marshal Vasilevskiy is designed to supply Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, between Lithuania and Poland, and ensure its gas security in case of disruption to pipeline supplies from neighboring countries.

According to LSEG data, the FSRU Marshal Vasilevskiy was on Monday loading LNG ship-to-ship near Kaliningrad onto the Cool Rover vessel, managed by Greece's Thenamaris LNG.

The previous LNG cargo received by Cool Rover was shipped in March from Portovaya to Spain.

Gazprom and Portovaya LNG did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Ship-to-ship transfers are used for reasons including cost reduction and logistics if ships are too big to enter a port or if a transfer would mean faster deliveries to customers, but they are more common for oil than for LNG.

LNG transfers are complicated by the need for maintaining the gas in its liquid state that requires a temperature of minus 163 Celsuis (minus 261.4 Fahrenheit).

Gazprom began using the FSRU Marshal Vasilevskiy for loading LNG ship-to-ship from Portovaya while one of its ice-class tankers, Velikiy Novgorod, was repaired in the port of Shanghai.

It left the Shanghai shipyard on March 5 and is heading west around Africa without a specific destination, LSEG data shows.

(Reuters - Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; editing by Barbara Lewis)