Egypt Refloats Drone-Damaged LNG FSRU Energos Winter After 14-Hour Salvage Operation

Egypt’s Damietta Port Authority has refloated the LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) Energos Winter and moved it to an anchorage about 10 nautical miles from the port after a 14-hour salvage operation with SMIT Salvage.

The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel was damaged in a drone strike at Damietta on July 29.

The attack caused an explosion and fire on board, which also spread to the nearby LNG carrier GasLog Salem. Both fires were brought under control and no deaths or injuries were reported.

Energos Winter later ran aground outside the port’s entrance channel. Egyptian authorities confirmed that the incident was caused by a drone strike but have not identified who was responsible.

Six tugs used in the refloating

SMIT Salvage prepared a technical plan for the operation after inspecting the vessel and carrying out engineering calculations using vessel data.

The refloating work took place on Aug. 6 in rough sea conditions. Capt Yasser Abdel Latif Ahmed and senior port pilots boarded the vessel to help coordinate the operation.

The first attempt used four tugs: the 70-tonne-bollard-pull Fahmy and the 60-tonne Hedaya, Saleh and Suleiman.

Energos Winter also released ballast to reduce its draft. The tugs were able to move the vessel, but could not completely free it from the seabed. Strong winds and the vessel’s exposed hull area of about 5,000 square metres made the operation more difficult.

Two more tugs, the 60-tonne Hamza and 50-tonne Abu Zeid, were then added. This increased the combined nominal bollard pull of the six tugs to 360 tonnes.

The salvage team changed its approach and pulled Energos Winter astern, at a right angle to the navigation channel. The bow was kept pointing north to prevent the vessel from moving towards shallow water.

The change worked and the FSRU was freed from the seabed.

Vessel moved to offshore anchorage

After being refloated, Energos Winter was towed at about three knots for roughly five hours to a designated anchorage around 10 nautical miles from Damietta.

The vessel anchored at about 20:00, and the operation was completed at around 22:00, about 14 hours after it began.

On July 29, the day of the drone attack, Energos Winter had left its berth in the inner harbour at about 14:00 before running aground just outside the entrance channel.

It was roughly 1,000 to 2,000 yards offshore. The grounding was not made public at the time and its cause was not disclosed.

The Damietta Port Authority and the vessel’s owner later brought in SMIT Salvage to carry out the refloating and towing operation.

Energos Winter LNG capacity

Energos Winter is owned by U.S.-based Energos Infrastructure and managed by Singapore-based Wilhelmsen Ship Management.

The FSRU can store 138,250 cubic metres of LNG. Energos Infrastructure develops and operates floating LNG import, storage and regasification infrastructure and has a fleet of 13 LNG infrastructure vessels.

References: Portnews, DPA