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The maiden liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunker delivery for the floating liquefaction vessel (FLNGV) Hilli Episeyo has been booked for next month, shipping company Golar LNG Ltd (Golar LNG) has confirmed.

The FLNGV is scheduled to depart from Singapore for Cameroon between the end of September and October, with the voyage between South East Asia and West Africa expected to take 32 to 40 days.

The LNG bunker delivery is scheduled to take place in mid-September - ahead of the vessel's departure.

The Hilli Episeyo was named at a ceremony in Keppel Shipyard, a unit of Keppel Offshore & Marine, in Singapore last month. It is the world's first converted FLNGV.

The vessel was converted from a 1975-built Moss LNG carrier with a storage capacity of 125,000 cubic metres. Sponsons were added on both sides of the hull to house the topside equipment comprising of pre-treatment systems, four PRICO single mixed refrigerant liquefaction trains, boil-off gas compression and offloading equipment. The FLNGV is designed for a liquefaction capacity of approximately 2.4 million tonnes of LNG per annum.

Hilli Episeyo acquisition

Earlier this month, on August 16, Golar LNG entered into a purchase and sale agreement for the sale of equity interests in Golar Hilli LLC to Golar LNG Partners L.P. (Golar LNG Partners) and affiliates of Keppel and Black and Veatch.

The agreed purchase price was $658 million less net lease obligations under the vessel financing facility that are expected to be between $468 and $480 million, which is said to represent 50 percent of the Hilli Episeyo FLNG facility.

Concurrent with execution of the purchase and sale agreement, Golar LNG Partners paid a $70 million deposit to Golar LNG, on which Golar LNG Partners will receive interest at a rate of 5 percent per annum.

The closing of the sale is expected to take place on or before April 30, 2018. Prior to closing, Golar LNG, Keppel and Black and Veatch will contribute their equity interests in Golar Hilli Corporation, the entity that owns the Hilli Episeyo, to a newly formed Golar Hilli LLC in return for equity interests in Golar Hilli LLC.

Keppel in Singapore

As previously reported, Keppel's joint venture company with Shell, FueLNG Ltd, is one of two LNG bunkering licence holders in Singapore - the other being Pavilion Gas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pavilion Energy.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore's (MPA) LNG bunkering pilot programme commenced earlier this year and will utilize the city-state's first standard for LNG bunkering, Singapore Technical Reference (TR) 56, to guide the implementation of operational protocols by licensed LNG bunker suppliers.

On the day of the launch of TR 56 in April, the MPA said: "The document will ensure Pavilion Gas and FueLNG, MPA's two appointed LNG bunker supplier licensees, conduct LNG bunkering operations of high quality with regards to safety as well as quantity and quality assurance."

Image: The floating liquefaction vessel (FLNGV) Hilli Episeyo during its naming ceremony in July 2017.