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GLNG AFRICA GLNG
NLNG’s shipping arm reportedly preparing to sell three tankers
NIGERIA
BONNY Gas Transport, the shipping arm of the Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium, has report- edly listed the three oldest vessels in its fleet of LNG carriers for sale.
The ships being offered are all steam tur- bine-powered Moss-type LNG tankers built by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) of South Korea, TradeWinds reported on August 9. It said brokers had identified the vessels as the LNG Rivers, built in 2002 with a capacity of 137,231 cubic metres; the LNG Sokoto, built in 2002 with a capacity of 137,098 cubic metres; and the LNG Bayelsa, built in 2003 with a capacity of 137,065 cubic metres.
As of press time, neither NLNG nor its ship- ping division had confirmed the TradeWinds report on the planned sale. Brokers said the deal was being carried out by two small shops and speculated that the vessels might command prices of $20-35mn each, selling in the lower end of the range (near their estimated scrap value of $20mn) if they were in relatively poor condition) or in the higher end if they were in better condi- tion and had been well maintained.
Bonny Gas Transport currently operates a fleet of 23 chartered LNG tankers. It owns 13 of the 23, with seven of the 13 being steam tur- bine-powered ships and the other six being dual- fuel diesel-electric vessels.
The NLNG subsidiary was reported by TradeWinds in 2020 to be conducting a wide-ranging review of its tanker fleet in view
of the new and stricter emissions standard – namely, the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index and Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) – that is due to take effect in January 2023. CII’s caps on carbon dioxide emissions are expected to have an impact on older steam turbine-powered vessels such as the three Moss-type carriers men- tioned by TradeWinds’ sources and could even force them to travel at lower speeds
As such, some tanker operators have opted to respond to the upcoming deadline by selling off the older ships in their fleet. Others, meanwhile, have chosen to retrofit their vessels with equip- ment that cuts their emissions.
Bonny Gas Transport was set up to handle all production from NLNG’s gas liquefaction com- plex on Bonny Island. The consortium brought its first production train on stream in 1999 and now has six production trains capable of turning out a total of 22.5 mn tpy. The complex’s installed capacity is now set to rise to 30mn tpy as a result of the Train 7 project, which envisions the con- struction of a seventh production train that can turn out 4.2mn tpy, as well as the debottleneck- ing of existing trains, which will add another 3.4mn tpy of capacity.
Equity in the NLNG consortium is split between Nigerian National Petroleum Co. Ltd (NNPC Ltd), with 49%; Shell (UK), with 25.6%; and TotalEnergies (France), with 15%; and Eni (Italy), with 10.4%. State-owned NNPC Ltd serves as operator of the group.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 32 12•August•2022
