The discovery of three big leaks this week in the Nord Stream gas pipelines near Denmark has put neighbouring countries in the Baltic Sea in a flap about the security of gas supply in this area. That makes liquefied natural gas imports to Europe more important.
Europe needs to replace lost Russian gas. Not every country on the continent has sufficient infrastructure to import the LNG sent from the US, Qatar and elsewhere. The snappily named floating storage and regasification units offer countries a cheaper, flexible solution to importing liquefied gas.
Relatively quickly, these vessels — refitted from LNG tankers — can anchor up, connect to the local gas network and turn imported frozen gas into piped methane. Moreover, building an onshore regasification plant can cost $10bn compared with the roughly $500mn new-build cost for an FSRU.