The economics of the Lubmin FSRU project

There is an old expression “Act in haste, repent at leisure” which has often been used in marriage, and as an LNG partnership is often considered a marriage we think this fits perfectly into German FSRU business but this Lubmin project in particular.

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So the large FSRU is going to be ‘flying’ light at 5.2 mtrs draft when a sensible figure is about 9 mtrs, meaning it will only have about 30-40000m3 of LNG on board (and therefore never in a safe condition to depart the facility in an emergency).

Then we have the small Coral Furcata shuttling between the FSU Seapeak Hispania and then another LNG ship bringing in the LNG.

So, we now have the emissions from 4 ships instead of just one ship that would normally deliver LNG to a land-based terminal!

Then we have the cargo loss on each transaction: incoming to FSU, then FSU to small ship and finally small ship to FSRU!

And let us not forget the cost! FSRU circa US$150,000 pd (per day), FSU circa US$60000 pd, Small ship circa US$30000pd so a round figure of about US$250000 pd with a further US$100000 pd fuel costs for approximately 25000m3 pd of regas LNG.

Overall that will make minimum regas costs of at least US$1 per MMBtu.

Just how did this project get a permit to operate?

Somebody is going to pay for this over the next 10 years!

Source: CS LNG (Keith BAINBRIDGE)