The FLNG Hilli Episeyo has departed Cameroon after eight years of continuous LNG production offshore Kribi, heading to Singapore’s Seatrium shipyard for a major upgrade before its redeployment to Argentina under a 20-year contract.
The vessel, the world’s first converted floating liquefaction unit, completed its production tolling contract with Perenco and Cameroon’s state oil company SNH in July 2026. It has been disconnected from its mooring system and is now making its way to Singapore, where Seatrium will carry out modifications including life extension works, winterisation measures for Argentina’s colder operating environment, and the installation of a new soft-yoke mooring system suited to its future deployment site in the Gulf of San Matias off the coast of Rio Negro province.
Golar LNG has indicated total costs for the vessel improvement programme, repositioning, operating expenses, fuel, insurance and the gap period between contracts of approximately $350 million. Around $50 million of that had been spent by the end of the first quarter of 2026, with the engineering preparation, long-lead procurement and supervision team deployment all well advanced before the Cameroon departure.
The Hilli Episeyo has an outstanding track record at the Kribi FLNG project. Since entering service in May 2018 it maintained 100% commercial uptime throughout its contract period, producing and exporting LNG continuously across more than eight years of operation. The vessel originally liquefied gas from Perenco and SNH’s Sanaga Sud and Ebome offshore gas fields, with Russian energy giant Gazprom as the primary offtaker for the first years of the contract.
Seatrium converted the vessel in 2017 from a Moss-type LNG carrier into an FLNG unit, making it the world’s first of its kind. The Singapore yard also delivered the FLNG Gimi to Golar in 2023, which is now operational at the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field on the Senegal-Mauritania maritime border.
Once the Singapore upgrade programme is complete, the Hilli Episeyo will sail to Argentina where it will liquefy gas from the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Neuquen province for export under a 20-year charter agreement. Pan American Energy, YPF, Pampa Energia and Harbour Energy took a final investment decision for the Southern Energy FLNG project in May 2026, clearing the final condition for the long-term redeployment charter. The vessel is expected to begin Argentine operations in 2027, with a nameplate liquefaction capacity of 2.45 million tonnes per year.
The Cameroon FLNG project was a landmark development for Africa’s LNG sector and for the global FLNG industry. Its successful eight-year operational run demonstrated the commercial and technical viability of converted FLNG vessels at scale, providing a foundation for the further development of the FLNG concept that Golar is now pursuing across multiple projects simultaneously, including a fourth FLNG unit for which long-lead items have been reserved.
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