Page 10 - GLNG Week 02

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MOL, COSCO name newest LNG carrier
PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
JAPAN’S Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and China COSCO Shipping have named the second of four LNG carriers the companies have commis- sioned to transport fuel produced by Russia’s Yamal LNG project. The naming ceremony for LNG MERAK was held at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding’s yard in Guangdong Province on January 9.
MOL and COSCO signed an agreement in June 2017 for the four vessels, which MOL will operate but will be 50:50 owned by the partners. Hudong-Zhonghua delivered the first vessel, LNG DUBHE, in October 2019. MOL said LNG MERAK would be its 12th operated LNG carrier built in China.
All four vessels will have 174,000 cubic metres of transportation carrying capacity and will be responsible for delivering fuel shipped to Euro- pean destinations by Yamal LNG’s fleet of Arc7 icebreakers to buyers in Asia.
The Novatek-led Yamal LNG project has a current faceplate production capacity of 16.5mn tonnes per year, spread across three 5.5mn tpy trains. Work is ongoing at a fourth train, which will have a capacity of 900,000 tpy.
Russia’s privately owned Novatek operates the project with a 50.1% stake, while French major Total owns 20%, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) owns 20% and China’s state-backed Silk Road Fund holds the remain- ing 9.9%.
The project, which is developing the South
Tambey field’s resources, has 926bn cubic metres of estimated proven and probable (2P) gas reserves.
On December 11, Yamal LNG announced the start-up of the 15th and final Arc7 ice-class tanker built for the project. Each vessel in the fleet is 299 metres long, has a capacity of 172,600 cubic metres and can break through two-metre thick ice.
The project said the fleet would not only be able to deliver all of the output from the first three trains, which are understood to be running above capacity, but would also be able to trans- port the fourth train’s additional output.
Business Korea reported on January 9 that while Russian shipyard Zvezda had won orders for a fleet of 15 Arc7 vessels to service Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) was expected to be selected as the pre- ferred yard for an additional 10 such vessels.™
Indian LNG demand supports spot prices
PERFORMANCE
INDIA’S demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is helping drive spot prices for the fuel higher, according to a report by Reuters.
The average price on the spot market for LNG delivered in February to East Asia climbed by $0.15 per mmBtu ($4.15 per 1,000 cubic metres) to an estimated $5.30 per mmBtu ($146.60 per 1,000 cubic metres) on January 10, the newswire said the same day, quoting unnamed trading sources.
The sources added that the price for cargoes delivered in March was estimated at $4.75 per mmBtu ($131.39 per 1,000 cubic metres).
This comes on the back of other Reuters reports that Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Indian Oil, GAIL (India) and GSPC were all looking for cargoes for delivery over the next few months.
S&P Global Platts reported at the start of the year that GAIL intended to import 90 LNG car- goes – around 5.8mn tonnes of LNG — from the US in financial year 2020-2021. The news
outlet quoted company officials as saying that this was up from a planned 75 cargoes – around 5mn tonnes – of US LNG in 2019-2020. GAIL imported 62 cargoes of US LNG in 2018-2019, Platts said. It quoted the head of GAIL’s LNG business, Rajeev Singhal, as saying that India’s demand for LNG could rise by around 3-4% in 2020-2021.
India is expected to emerge as a major demand centre for natural gas in the coming years as it invests heavily in building out its piped gas network. The country is investing $60bn in gas infrastructure, both pipelines and LNG import terminals, as it aims to complete a cross-country transportation grid in 2024. The country’s spending spree is aimed at raising the share of gas in the country’s energy mix to 15% by 2030.
Wood Mackenzie has predicted that national demand for gas will double to 75bn cubic metres by 2030, with LNG imports meeting half of this demand.™
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 02 16•January•2020