First Gen has issued an invitation to bid for the maiden cargo for its grassroots floating storage and regasification unit-based liquefied natural gas import project in the Philippines that now is set to be operational within months.

FGEN is seeking a single cargo from “experienced LNG suppliers” to be supplied on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis at Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales province. The cargo will be loaded on to the FSRU BW Batangas after facilitating its gassing up and cooling down.

The required delivery window for this spot cargo of 154,000 cubic metres —subject plus or minus 3% operational tolerance – is 1 August to 30 September.

The award is expected to be made on 6 July, according to the ITB notice.

“Besides providing LNG storage and regasification services, BW Paris (now renamed BW Batangas) will support the country’s ambition to be an LNG hub through additional services such as the reloading of LNG into trucks and small-scale LNG vessels,” said BW LNG on its website.

“Our solution will increase LNG access to nearby industrial areas as well as the rest of the Philippine archipelago.”

The FSRU was converted from a 2009-built tanker by Singapore’s Keppel Shipyard — part of Keppel Offshore & Marine that was recently acquired by compatriot Sembcorp Marine. The vessel is understood to have recently undergone some modification work at Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering’s Johor yard in Malaysia, prior to this week departing back to Singapore and then on to the Philippines.

BW Batangas has a regasification capacity of 550 million cubic feet per day of gas and can store up to 162,400 cubic metres of LNG.

Initial regasified volumes from the FSRU will be utilised by FGEN’s existing gas-fired power plant in the First Gen Clean Energy Complex in Batangas. The Philippines company has four such gas-fired power plants with combined capacity of 2.017 gigawatts – 1.92 GW baseload and 97 megawatts peak shaving – that for many years have received feed gas from the Malampaya offshore giant gas field where production is now in decline.

LNG is required to replace that gas supply to secure the energy security of the country and FGEN intends to source a mixture of term supplies, short-term strips and spot LNG cargoes to meet that requirement.

Wholly owned subsidiary FGEN LNG has a firm five-year time charter party deal for the FSRU BW Batangas — a project intended to accelerate the introduction of LNG to the Philippines, to meet the natural gas demand of existing and future gas-fired power plants of FGEN’s affiliates and third parties.