Port of Vlora FSRU

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Port of Vlora FSRU, also known as Vlora Terminal, is a shelved (inferred 2 y) LNG import terminal in Albania.

Location

Table 1: Location details

Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Port of Vlora FSRU	Port of Vlora, Albania	40.449271, 19.480761 (approximate)

The map below shows the approximate location of the terminal:

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Project Details

Table 2: Infrastructure details

mtpa = million tonnes per year

Name	Facility type	Status	Capacity	Total terminal capacity	Offshore	Associated infrastructure
Port of Vlora FSRU	import	shelved (inferred 2 y)	–	–	True	–

Table 3: Cost

Name	Facility type	Cost	Total known terminal costs
Port of Vlora FSRU	import	–	–

Financing

No financing data available.

Table 4: Project timeline

FID = Final Investment Decision, used by some developers to indicate a project will move forward

Name	Facility type	Status	Proposal year	FID year	Construction year	Operating year	Inactive year
Port of Vlora FSRU	import	shelved (inferred 2 y)	2021	–	–	–	2024 (shelved)

Ownership

Table 5: Ownership

Name	Facility type	Status	Owners	Parent companies	Operator
Port of Vlora FSRU	import	shelved (inferred 2 y)	Exxon Mobil Corp; Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy (Albania); Excelerate Energy LP	Excelerate Energy Holdings LLC; Excelerate Energy Inc; Exxon Mobil Corp; Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy (Albania)	Excelerate Energy

Table 6: Vessel ownership

Name	Facility type	Status	Vessel owners	Vessel operator
Port of Vlora FSRU	import	shelved (inferred 2 y)	Excelerate Energy	Excelerate Energy

Background

Excelerate Energy L.P. (Excelerate), ExxonMobil LNG Market Development Inc. (ExxonMobil), and the Republic of Albania (the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on March 12, 2021, to conduct a feasibility study for the potential development of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Port of Vlora in Southern Albania. Under the MOU, Excelerate will conduct a study to explore the potential of an integrated LNG-to-power solution that includes developing an LNG import terminal, converting and/or expanding the existing Vlora thermal power plant, and establishing small scale LNG distribution to Albania and the surrounding Balkans region. The pre-feasibility report is expected to be delivered in Q3 2021, while the targeted start-up for the LNG import project could be as early as 2023. As of December 2021, no progress on the pre-feasibility report had been reported.

In the first half of 2022, plans to develop the terminal were moving ahead rapidly. Excelerate's CEO Steven Kobos announced in a May 2022 conference call that the company would move its FSRU vessel Excelsior from Israel to Albania at the end of 2022, with commercial regasification operations expected to begin at Vlore in the second quarter of 2023. Development of the new terminal has prompted talk of Albania becoming a gas hub for the Balkans; as of June 2022, Albania had already begun discussing new energy agreements with neighboring countries including Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria.

In July 2022, Excelerate announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Bulgaria's Overgas for negotiations to take place on the sale of regasified LNG downstream of the planned Vlora LNG terminal. The two companies said that they would enter into a negotiation for Overgas to purchase up to 1.0 billion cubic meters of regasified LNG annually for ten years from Excelerate (or an affiliated entity) via the Vlora Terminal and the proposed Vlora-Fier Gas Pipeline which is expected to interconnect with existing natural gas infrastructure in Europe's Southern Gas Corridor.

In October 2022, Excelerate announced that the Excelsior FSRU, intended for use at Vlora, would be deployed instead to Germany following the signing of a five-year charter contract with the German state. As of December 2022, there were no indications of alternative vessel arrangements having been made for the Port of Vlora project. In April 2023, Port Europe noted that the Port of Vlora FSRU and Bar LNG Terminal in Montenegro appeared stalled. As of July 2024, there have been no project updates in over two years, and the project is presumed to be shelved. The project does, however, appear in Gas Infrastructure Europe's October 2024 database.

In April 2026, Albania signed a memorandum with Atlantic SEE LNG Trade for the supply of up to one billion cubic metres of gas per year. It is a joint venture of Aktor Group, holding 60%, and DEPA Commercial. The project foresees a 380 MW gas-fired power plant, a new LNG terminal at the port, and a pipeline link to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). As of July 2026, there have not been any updates about the Port of Flora FSRU since July 2026. Thus, the old project is considered to be shelved and replaced by the new porject mentioned above.

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Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of LNG terminals, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Gas Infrastructure Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.