Screengrab from Facebook video Egypt’s Damietta Port Authority has refloated the LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) Energos Winter and moved it to an anchorage about 10 nautical miles from the port after a 14-hour salvage operation with SMIT Salvage. The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel was damaged in a drone strike at Damietta on July 29. The attack caused an explosion and fire on board, which also spread to the nearby LNG carrier GasLog Salem. Both fires were brought under control and no deaths or injuries were reported. Energos Winter later ran aground outside the port’s entrance channel. Egyptian authorities confirmed that the incident was caused by a drone strike but have not identified who was responsible. Six tugs used in the refloating SMIT Salvage prepared a technical plan for the operation after inspecting the vessel and carrying out engineering calculations using vessel data. The refloating work took place on Aug. 6 in rough sea conditions. Capt Yasser Abdel Latif Ahmed and senior port pilots boarded the vessel to help coordinate the operation. The first attempt used four tugs: the 70-tonne-bollard-pull Fahmy and the 60-tonne Hedaya, Saleh and Suleiman. Energos Winter also released ballast to reduce its draft. The tugs were able to move the vessel, but could not completely free it from the seabed. Strong winds and the vessel’s exposed hull area of about 5,000 square metres made the operation more difficult. Two more tugs, the 60-tonne Hamza and 50-tonne Abu Zeid, were then added. This increased the combined nominal bollard pull of the six tugs to 360 tonnes. The salvage team changed its approach and pulled Energos Winter astern, at a right angle to the navigation channel. The bow was kept pointing north to prevent the vessel from moving towards shallow water. The change worked and the FSRU was freed from the seabed. Vessel moved to offshore anchorage After being refloated, Energos Winter was towed at about three knots for roughly five hour