LNG

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.

QatarEnergy Chief Executive Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said the soaring cost of energy was “weighing painfully” on the world economy and eroding support among the general public for the transition to “green energy” while boosting coal-burning in the world’s leading economies.

The liquefied natural gas import terminal at Dunkirk on the French Channel Coast has opened its truck-loading bay as small-scale LNG and fuel usage increases in Europe.

“Ship owners and haulage companies as well as remote industry increasingly choose LNG as alternative low emission fuel. Their supply can now be sourced from the Dunkirk LNG terminal,” said the French Dunkerque LNG operating company .

Following its commercial entry into service, the newly commissioned truck-loading bay at the Dunkirk terminal offers a loading capacity of 3,000 slots per year.

The Dunkirk import facility is owned and operated by Dunkerque LNG, a company 61 percent held by a consortium including Belgian gas infrastructure group Fluxys, as well as funds such as AXA Investment Managers on behalf of its clients and France’s Crédit Agricole Assurances.

A further 39 percent is owned by a consortium of South Korean investors led by IPM Group in cooperation with Samsung Asset Management.

Juan Vazquez, Chief Executive of Dunkerque LNG, said he was delighted with the start-up of services for the trucking industry.

“This project has successfully come to fruition through our collaboration with the Port of Dunkirk, one of our main partners in the development of this new service,” explained Vazquez.

“With a capacity of almost 2,000 loading slots available between now and the end of the year, our first bay is ready to welcome customers,” stated the CEO.

The company said the service was straightforward and trucking customers can book loading slots online 24/7.

“After online training, drivers can fully autonomously load LNG in just one hour and 30 minutes thanks to a flow rate of 50 cubic metres per hour,” said Dunkerque LNG.

“The increasing demand for cleaner energy in maritime and road transport as well as in the industrial sector has brought LNG to the forefront as an attractive alternative due to its low emission profile,” added the company.

The terminal is located alongside Dunkirk's Western Harbour and began importing cargoes in 2016.

The jetty is large enough to enable the unloading and reloading of the largest LNG carriers up to 266,000 cubic metres capacity and it has three tanks. each with 200,000 cubic metres of storage.