Turkey’s new floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) will enter Turkish waters within the month, the nation’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez announced.

"Ertuğrul Gazi, the FSRU of our country, has been registered in the Turkish International Ship Registry and flies our glorious flag," Dönmez said on Twitter on Saturday.

The FSRU vessel has been named after the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

"Ertuğrul Gazi, which crosses the Indian Ocean, will enter our territorial waters later this month. We are waiting with excitement," Dönmez said.

The vessel can store 170,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), equivalent to 102 million cubic meters in gas form, and has a regasification capacity of 28 million cubic meters per day.

Owned by Turkey’s state-owned crude oil and natural gas pipelines and trading company, BOTAŞ, the vessel is expected to operate at the Gulf of Saros, in the country’s northwest.

The two other FSRU vessels are anchored in the industrial Aliağa district of western Izmir and Hatay’s Dörtyol district.

The FSRU in Aliağa had replaced Turkey’s first FSRU that entered service in 2016 due to its larger capacity in 2019.

The first LNG floating vessel had a storage capacity of 139,000 cubic meters and was able to provide 14 million cubic meters of gas to the Turkish network per day.