The “Alexandroupolis”, Greece’s first floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) vessel, anchored in the Thracian Sea off the northeast port of Alexandroupolis – its namesake – over the weekend.
The seaborne FSRU departed Singapore on Nov. 26 last month en route to the northern Aegean Sea port, following a 10-month alteration and upgrade at the Seatrium shipyard.
The immediate sea region off Alexandroupolis, which lies just west of the Greek-Turkish land border in the Thrace province, will be the FSRU’s permanent anchorage.
The entire project marks another step in the completion of a major energy milestone in southeast Europe.
The vessel will be connected with a high-pressure subsea pipeline that will subsequently link with an overland pipeline in order to deliver natural gas to Greece’s national transmission network. Final consumers will be in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, and in the future, Moldova and Ukraine. Further expansion into central Europe is also envisioned.
The full operation of the unit is expected in the first quarter of 2024, following a pilot phase. The maximum capacity is billed at 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas on an annual basis.
