Höegh LNG Holdings, the owner of 10 floating storage and regasification units and two conventional LNG carrier, has completed the acquisition of the LNG carrier “Golar Seal”.
The company purchased the 2013-built “Golar Seal” from Cool Co., the LNG shipping joint venture led by Eastern Pacific Shipping.
Höegh LNG paid $184.3M for the vessel with 160,000 cubic metres of capacity.
Hamilton, Bermuda-based, Höegh also assumed all costs associated with the vessel's scheduled dry-docking.
Höegh said that the “Golar Seal” would also be renamed the “Höegh Gandria”.
Höegh last month reported net losses for the fourth quarter and the year during a busy period as three vessels were prepared for floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) operations in Germany and Brazil.
Höegh still posted increased revenues during the last three months of 2022 amounting to $106.06M, up from $94.66M in the same quarter of 2021. Full-year revenues rose to $380.8M from $351.8M in 2021.
FSRU market
The company increased vessel operating expenses primarily related to repositioning of three vessels to make them ready for FSRU operations.
All three vessels completed their FSRU operational preparations at shipyards during the fourth quarter and two 10-year time charter contracts with the German Federal Government were signed in December and January respectively.
The company’s FSRUs “Höegh Esperanza” and “Höegh Gannet” were allocated to contracts and deployed in Germany at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel on the Elbe River north of Hamburg.
The third vessel, “Höegh Giant”, left the yard in November and was operating in the LNG carrier market on an interim charter before it was scheduled to go to Brazil in the second quarter of 2023.
Höegh signed a 10-year charter agreement with a Brazilian joint venture comprising São Paulo Regas Company and Comgás, Brazil’s largest gas distributor.
Höegh added in its earnings statement that its business development team was in “active dialogue” with several potential new projects looking for FSRU capacity which could provide growth opportunities for the group in the future.
