LNG

Belgian shipping company Exmar, which chartered a regasification barge to the Netherlands and sold a floating LNG production vessel to Italy’s Eni for deployment offshore  the Republic of Congo, is completing its take-over by Saverex NV, the holding company of the family of Exmar Executive Chairman Nicolas Saverys and additionally reported solid third-quarter earnings.

“The Congo LNG project is entering a new phase with ENI’s ‘Tango FLNG’ and Exmar’s ‘Excalibur’ heading for Congo for installation and start-up by December 2023,” Exmar stated.

The Antwerp, Belgium-based shipping and infrastructure company reported third-quarter revenues of $345.4 million, up from $95.6M in the same three months of 2022.

Exmar said adjusted gross earnings amounted to $140.5M compared with $52.6M in the prior-year quarter.

Eemshaven LNG

“The increase in revenue in the first nine months of 2023 versus 2022 reflects the full impact of the employment of the FSRU ‘Eemshaven LNG’ and the LNG carrier ‘Excalibur’ as well as the engineering, procurement and conversion works for the Congo LNG project with Eni,” Exmar explained.

The company pointed out that September 2022 gross earnings (EBITDA) were positively impacted by a $315.6M gain on the sale of “Tango FLNG” to Eni.

Exmar noted that on October 21 Eni, Dry Docks World Dubai and Exmar celebrated the “sail away” of the “Tango FLNG” and Excalibur floating storage unit (FSU) vessels from Dubai to Congo for use in Eni’s LNG project.

“Exmar with its expertise in LNG infrastructure and serving as the engineering, procurement and conversion contractor for this project, has designed the mooring system (Exmar Offshore Company) and performed the refurbishments on both vessels at Dry Docks World yard in Dubai,” the company explained.

The LNG carrier “Excalibur” is on hire to Eni Congo for use as the FSU in the Congo LNG project.

The FSRU “Eemshaven LNG” is on charter to a unit of Dutch utility Gasunie called the EemsEnergyTerminal BV.

“The FSRU has been running steadily at lower capacity during summer time and is now scaling up for the winter season,” Exmar stated.

Shipping earnings

Exmar added that shipping division revenues rose to $110.6M versus $108.7M in the same quarter last year.

In its shipping division, Exmar retains an extensive fleet including three Very Large Gas Carriers, 17 mid-sized liquefied petroleum gas carriers, two newbuilds and 10 pressurised carriers.

Exmar said that Time Charter Equivalent Rates for Midsized vessels rose to $25,656 per day from $23,916 per day.

The VLGC TCE rates increased to $42,229 per from $39,091 a day and rates for pressurised tankers of 5,000 cubic metres capacity rose to $9,097 per day from $8,530 per day.

The company also made an investment in the drilling sector with Vantage Drilling International, buying a stake of 11.5 percent.

“Vantage is a player in offshore oil and natural gas well drilling services, with a fleet comprising of two ultra-deep-water drill ships and two premium jack-up rigs, listed on the US OTC market under VTDRF,” Exmar said.

“This strategic investment is driven by promising value due to continued under-investment in the offshore drilling market. After over two decades, Exmar re-enters the drilling sector, further expanding its role in the energy value chain,” the company added.

On the takeover bid, Exmar said that the reopening of the acceptance period of the voluntary public takeover bid launched by Saverex for all shares and share option in Exmar ended on Friday, September 15. 

Due to this process, Saverex holds a total of more than 47.81 million shares in Exmar, representing 80.36 percent of the outstanding shares.

The shares in Exmar held by Nicolas Saverys (7,924 shares) and by Exmar (2.02M shares) as well as by Saverex and persons affiliated amount to over 49.83M shares, representing 83.76 percent of Exmar.

Feb 23 (LNGJ) - Eni, the Italian oil and gas major, reported increased annual net profits of €13.31Bln ($16.08Bln) compared with €5.82Bln in the previous year. However, profits plunged in the fourth quarter to €550 million from €3.52Bln in the same three months of 2021 because of special items, including reduced fair-valued commodity derivatives of €1.1Bln, asset impairments of €900M and an extraordinary solidarity tax of €700M.

   Eni’s LNG sales in 2022 dropped by 14 percent to 9.4 million tonnes from 10.9MT in 2021, impacted by lower supply from Russia and Nigeria. In LNG project activities, Eni noted that in November the first loading of LNG produced from the Coral Sul FLNG project offshore Mozambique was completed. In December, as part of the Congo LNG project from Eni’s gas reserves in block Marine XII, a turn-key contract was signed to build, install and commission an FLNG vessel. Eni will pair the “Tango FLNG” vessel purchased earlier from Exmar to speed up development plans. Congo LNG output should reach 3 MTPA in 2025.

Italian government ministers have signed an accord with the Republic of Congo in West Africa to increase natural gas production and exports under a plan also involving future LNG shipments.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi di Maio, and the European Union member’s Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, signed the letter of intent with Congolese counterparts, including Congo's Minister of Hydrocarbons Bruno Jean Richard Itoua.

Also present was the Chief Executive of Italian energy company Eni, Claudio Descalzi, and after the signing the parties met in the capital Brazzaville with the President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso.

“The agreement provides for the acceleration and increase of gas production in Congo, primarily through the development of an LNG project with start-up expected in 2023,” said a statement.

The floating LNG joint venture would have capacity of more than 3 million tonnes per annum of LNG once fully operational.

“LNG exports will allow the valorization of the production of natural gas that exceeds Congo’s internal market needs,” explained the statement.

The Republic of Congo and Eni have also agreed to define initiatives to promote decarbonisation, renewable energy and the development of an agricultural supply chain to produce feedstock for bio-refining without competing with the food chain.

“Currently Eni is the only company committed to developing the huge gas resources of the Republic of Congo,” said the Milan-based oil and gas company.

It currently supplies natural to the Congo Power Plant (CEC), which guarantees 70 percent of the country's electricity generation and Eni has been present in Congo for over 50 years.

At the start of March 2022, New Fortress Energy Inc., the New York-based supplier of LNG for power, signed an accord with a Eni’s Congo subsidiary for the deployment of LNG production equipment off the coast of the African nation for a period of 20 years.

NFE said it would set up its “Fast LNG” facility to produce LNG from the associated gas fields off the Congo.

The deal in the form of a preliminary Heads of Agreement provides a framework for negotiating a long-term tolling agreement between NFE and Eni.

NFE said that this would be for the full capacity of the facility and for the purchase by NFE of around 1.2 million gallons of LNG per day pursuant to a 20-year free-on-board (FOB) sales and purchase agreement.

The Republic of Congo’s associated gas comes from its oil production.

Wes Edens, Chairman and CEO of NFE, described the NFE-Eni deal at the time as a “landmark partnership” with the Italian company seen by Edens as the “perfect partner” for the “Fast LNG” unit

The NFE “Fast LNG” design pairs modular, midsize liquefaction technology with jack-up rigs or similar floating infrastructure to enable a much lower cost and faster deployment schedule than floating liquefaction vessels.

Under the NFE plan, a permanently moored floating storage unit (FSU) would serve as an LNG storage facility alongside the floating liquefaction infrastructure, which can be deployed anywhere where there is abundant and stranded natural gas.