LNG

Greece-based Dynagas will be allowed to keep shipping Russian LNG to third countries under the EU’s new sanctions package, in a 12-month exemption that caps volumes at 2025 levels.

The early 2023 LNG shipping market has opened with a “trembling uncertainty” in the LNG freight market with charter rates in the first few weeks alone falling 30 percent in the Atlantic Basin and 16 percent in the Far East,

Of the top ship-owning nations, the Greeks continue to outperform the nation’s size with a fleet ranked third globally behind Japan and China respectively in both the number of vessels and the total value, though Greece’s fleet value has been augmented by an increasing number of quality LNG carriers.

Dynagas LNG Partners, the owner of six LNG carriers and mostly involved in Russian cargo liftings, has confirmed in its latest earnings report that three of its carrier charters are now controlled by the German government because they were under contract to Russian natural gas company Gazprom.

Wilhelmsen Ships Service of Norway, the largest ports agency network in the world, expects crew changes for LNG carriers and other vessels to proceed smoothly if required in the global shipping hub of Singapore under new Covid-19 guidelines.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, any crew changes can now take place in Singapore under procedures established by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Singapore Government, along with Wilhelmsen and other agencies.

“The new guidelines provide both predictability and a solid foundation for safe crew changes in substantially larger numbers than seen in the last few months,” said Wilhelmsen.

“In that regard, the new clear, consistent guidelines could become the blueprint for port authorities elsewhere when looking at reopening for crew changes,” said the company.

Singapore is the busiest hub for all vessels, including LNG carriers and liquefied petroleum gas carriers.

According to the MPA’s own figures 206 LNG and LPG carriers arrived in the vicinity of the port of Singapore in March 2020 and 180 LNG and LPG ships were logged in April 2020.

In the energy sector, the biggest proportion in Singapore waters were oil tankers, with 1,588 passages counted in April 2020.

The new crew change protocols are published in the Covid-19 Singapore Crew Change Guidebook and were developed in accordance with International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) Frameworks for crew changes and the MPA’s Port Marine Circular (PMC) 26 of 2020.

A guidebook has been issued by the MPA, Singapore Shipping Association (SSA) and Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU), all in cooperation with the International Maritime Employers’ Council Ltd (IMEC) and the World Shipping Council (WSC).

Wilhelmsen said the first seafarers to benefit from the use of a chartered flight to comply with the new crew change protocol, developed by the Singapore Crew Change Working Group (SGCCWG), finally disembarked the bulk carrier “Genco Liberty” at the Port of Singapore on June 6.

The signing off crew had completed their contracts onboard.

“As an integral part of the Singapore Crew Change Working Group, (SGCCWG) we are very happy to now be coordinating the first full crew change, performed in line with the new crew change protocol we worked so hard to put together as part of the SGCCWG,” said Neal De Roche, Executive Vice President, of Wilhelmsen Ships Agency.

“It is encouraging to see how regulators, industry bodies, customers and indeed competitors now coming together to address such a critical matter, the welfare of seafarers,” added De Roche.

“As port agents, we are committed to supporting the industry in any way we can to get our seafarers home, and new crews redeployed safely and efficiently,” he stated.

The 19-man Indian crew of the “Genco Liberty” will now return home via a chartered flight from Singapore to Colombo in Sri Lanka and then on to India.

Their colleagues made up of 14 Sri Lankans and four Indian seafarers who arrived at Singapore from Sri Lanka early on June 6, also via the same chartered flight, signed on the same day.

“At Synergy Group we have desperately been trying to conduct crew changes since the outbreak of Covid-19,” said Captain Rajesh Unni, founder and Chief Executive of Synergy ship management company.

“In early March, we proposed the idea of a safe corridor for seafarers to facilitate crew changes, founded an alliance of leading maritime companies in April to push for collective crew changes and most recently have been one of the participants in the Singapore Crew Change Working Group,” he added.

“By enabling a full complement of Sri Lanka and Indian seafarers to join and disembark this GENCO Shipping & Trading bulk carrier, through this well planned and controlled changeover, they have shown the world that crew changeovers for seafarers of other nationalities are possible even during a pandemic,” stated Capt. Unni.

In the current environment, where the impact and restrictions relating to the pandemic remain fluid in many places, the expectation is that the coordination of crew change will continue to be a challenge.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, crew change can take place in Singapore under procedures established by the MPA.

For example, on-signers of the “Genco Liberty” were asked to remain in home quarantine for 14 days and tested negative for Covid-19 before their departure flight.

They were met at the airport by an agent with private transport that complied with safe distancing measures. Face masks and hand sanitisation were also provided for all arriving crew.

For the crew signing-off, an approved medical doctor certified that all crew members were fit-to-travel prior to sign-off. There was no sharing of passenger launch boats for crew and service engineers-technicians.

The crew were conveyed in private transport that complied with safe distancing measures, and fresh face masks and hand sanitisation were provided for all crew before boarding the vehicles.

The designated agent also reminded crew members that the donning of face masks is compulsory in Singapore.

“Singapore continues to facilitate crew change under established procedures, in view of the ongoing pandemic,” said Ms Quah Ley Hoon, Chief Executive of the MPA.

“These procedures elaborated in the Singapore Crew Change Guidebook are the efforts of many stakeholders including many Singapore government agencies, the Singapore Shipping Association leading an industry taskforce, and the Singapore Maritime Officers Union,” she explained.

“We are glad that together with Wilhelmsen and the Synergy Group, and by using a chartered flight, we have been able to help 37 crew members sign on and sign off,” said the MPA CEO.

“Such chartered flights provide an effective means of crew change under the established procedures,” she stated.

Russian shipping line SCF Group and a Russian financial institution signed an agreement for lease-financing of the first ship in a series of ice-breaking liquefied natural gas carriers expected to be built to serve the Arctic LNG II project in northern Siberia.

Two more Arc7 ice-class liquefied natural gas carriers are entering service to transport shipments produced at the Yamal liquefied natural gas plant in northern Siberia, operated by Russian natural gas company Novatek, taking the number in the Yamal fleet to 13 vessels.

Executives said the next two ships to join the fleet are the “Nikolay Urvantsev” and the “Vladimir Voronin” after they complete sea trials.

All the ships delivered so far have been built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in South Korea and have capacities of between 170,000 cubic metres and 172,600 cubic metres.

The “Nikolay Urvantsev” is owned by the Japanese company Mitsui OSK Lines. Other vessels are owned or operated by a variety of companies, including Bermuda-based Teekay LNG, Greek shipping line Dynagas and Russia's Sovcomflot.

All but one of the tankers are named after Russian Arctic explorers or scientists.

The first Arc7 tanker, the “Christophe De Margerie”, is named after the late Chief Executive of French energy major Total who died in a plane crash near Moscow in 2014.

Total is a major investor in Novatek and in the Yamal plant.

The 11th completed vessel, the “Nikolay Yevgenov”, underwent sea trials in April and delivered its first cargo in early June.

A 14th vessel of the 15 on order, the “Yakov Gakkel”, is at the DSME yard and is also set to begin trials. The 15th ship is as yet unnamed.

The tankers have been delivering Yamal shipments since the facility began operations in December 2017.

The plant comprises three liquefaction Trains with a total nameplate capacity of 16.5 million tonnes per annum, or 5.5 MTPA per LNG train.

Yamal is dependent on the ice-breaker tankers to ship LNG from Arctic waters to Western Europe and Asia.

Novatek said it had asked DSME to speed up construction and delivery of the tankers after production at the LNG plant ramped up faster than expected.

Many of the carriers have conducted ship-to-ship LNG transfers to conventional carriers, particularly offshore Norway, though during the summer months they can traverse the Northern Sea Route eastwards to North Asian countries.

Other ships in the fleet include the “Georgiy Brusilov”, delivered in November 2018 and the “Boris Davidov” in December and they are operated by Dynagas.

Among the other ships in the Arc7 fleet are the “Boris Vilkitsky”, the “Fedor Litke”, the “Eduard Toll”, the “Vladimir Rusanov”, the “Rudolf Samoylovich” and the “Vladimir Vize”.

June 14 (LNGJ) - French maritime storage technology company GTT said it received an order from the South Korean shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries for tank designs for two LNG carriers on behalf of the Greek shipowner Dynagas. Each vessel will have 180,000 cubic metres capacity and be equipped with GTT’s Mark III Flex-plus containment system. The vessels are scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2022.

Dynagas LNG Partners, the US-listed owner of six modern LNG carriers chartered to companies such as Russia’s Gazprom, posted a 55 percent plunge in annual revenue, with the Chief Executive saying the slump was only short term.

Dynagas LNG Partners, the Greek-owned carrier operator with six vessels, posted first-quarter operating income of $8.7 million and a net loss $5.2M amid extra expenses for a scheduled class survey and dry-dock costs for the company’s three steam turbine-powered vessels.