Mitsui O.S.K. Lines has signed a long-term charter with Deutsche ReGas to provide a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) for the Deutsche Ostsee LNG import terminal at Mukran, Germany, in a deal that will restore the terminal to its fully permitted regasification capacity of 13.5 billion cubic metres per year - equivalent to roughly 15 percent of Germany's natural gas demand.
Under the agreement, China's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding will convert an existing LNG carrier into the FSRU. Conversion work is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2027 and take about seven months, involving replacement of the vessel's engines, regasification equipment and pumps. The charter is set to begin in 2028, and German media report the contract runs until 2043 and is worth several hundred million dollars. The specific vessel to be converted has not been identified.
The terminal currently operates with the Neptune FSRU, after the Energos Power departed in 2025 following termination of its charter arrangement with the German government. Deutsche ReGas chief executive Ingo Wagner said the new unit would strengthen long-term energy security while giving greater flexibility for LNG imports into Germany and Europe. For MOL, the deal marks its first independently initiated LNG carrier-to-FSRU conversion project intended to feed a major gas network, extending an FSRU investment footprint that already spans Indonesia, Hong Kong, Poland and Singapore.
The deal underlines how LNG carrier-to-FSRU conversions have become the supply chain's fast lane for import capacity. A seven-month conversion window is tight, and it concentrates procurement risk on a short list of critical equipment: regasification skids, cryogenic pumps, high-pressure vaporizers and the valve packages that connect them. Cryogenic gate, globe and check valves, emergency shutdown valves and LNG boil-off handling components all have to be sourced, tested and delivered inside that window, so suppliers with proven type certification and available production slots will win the work. The engine replacement scope adds another layer, pulling in dual-fuel machinery packages and their fuel-gas control systems.
Hudong-Zhonghua's role is equally notable. Chinese yards are pricing aggressively for conversion work, and their slot availability gives charterers like MOL schedule certainty that European yards currently struggle to match. European EPC firms and equipment makers competing in the FSRU space should expect conversions of this type to keep migrating eastward, with European scope narrowing toward integration, commissioning and regulatory interfaces.
The contract term out to 2043 also defines a long aftermarket tail. A unit chartered for roughly fifteen years generates recurring demand for cryogenic valve overhauls, seal and gasket renewal, drydocking support and mid-life control-system refits. Equipment manufacturers that lock in framework agreements now, while the vessel is still under conversion, will be positioned for that service revenue. For Germany, restoring Mukran's 13.5 bcm capacity is an energy security decision as much as a commercial one - and it signals that European LNG infrastructure spending, and the industrial supply chain behind it, will stay busy well into the 2030s.