LNG

Nov 14 (LNGJ) - The UK is set to receive two additional US LNG deliveries in the next week. One vessel is scheduled to discharge a cargo from Texas on November 14 at the Isle of Grain terminal on the Medway River, southeast of London, and a second is due to berth next week at the South Hook import terminal at the Port of Milford Haven in Wales with a shipment from Louisiana.

   The carrier “Flex Constellation” with 174,400 cubic metres capacity was set to berth before midday on November 14 at the Isle of Grain facility after lifting a cargo on November 1 from the Corpus Christi export plant in Texas, according to shipping data. The vessel “LNG Abalamabie” with 170,000 cubic metres capacity is scheduled to berth at South Hook on November 20 with a shipment loaded at the US Sabine Pass plant.

Flex LNG, the Norwegian shipping company with a fleet of 13 vessels and several chartered to the largest exporters, posted solid net income and increased vessel operating revenues with all ships available after previous dry-dockings.

May 30 (LNGJ) - The Netherlands and the UK are scheduled to receive LNG deliveries over the next couple of days as natural gas benchmark prices continue to tumble. The Dutch Title Transfer Facility price was last at the equivalent of $7.850 per million British thermal units while the UK National Balancing Point price was quoted at $6.835 per MMBtu.

   The “Flex Constellation” with 173,400 cubic metres capacity is due to discharge a shipment on May 31 at the Dutch Eemshaven floating terminal. The cargo was lifted on May 18 from the Corpus Christi export plant in Texas, according to shipping data. The 216,200 cubic metres capacity Qatari Q-Flex vessel “Al Gharrafa” is scheduled to berth with a cargo on June 2 at the UK Dragon terminal at the port of Milford Haven. The volumes were lifted at Ras Laffan on May 14.

Nov 16 (LNGJ) - Another LNG cargo is heading for the UK port of Milford Haven this week on board the 173,400 cubic metres capacity “Flex Constellation”, according to the port authorities. The US shipment is scheduled to arrive on November 20 at the port’s South Hook terminal after being lifted on November 6 from the Cameron export plant in Louisiana.

Flex LNG, the Norwegian shipping company with a fleet of 13 modern vessels and several chartered to the largest US exporter Cheniere Energy, reported higher third-quarter revenues and profits as global demand soared for cargoes.

“The gas crunch is not going away anytime soon and arbitrage between the US and import nations in Europe and Asia will stay at elevated levels supporting freight market economics,” said Flex in presenting its earnings.

Flex explained that about 40 LNG carriers in the global fleet were tied up in floating storage due to traffic congestion and contango - when the futures price was at a higher level than the spot price as has happened throughout the third quarter.

Flex’s vessel operating revenues in the third quarter amounted to $91.3 million to the end of September 2022 compared with $81.8M in the same three months of 2021 and $84.2M for the second quarter of 2022.

Net income increased to $46.6M from $32.8M in the prior-year quarter and $44.3M in the second quarter this year.

Charter rates

The Bermuda-based company’s average time charter equivalent (TCE) rates for the three months came to $75,941 per day versus $68,341 per day a year ago and $70,707 per day for the second quarter of this year.

“During the third quarter, ‘Flex Enterprise’ and ‘Flex Amber’ commenced their new seven-year time charters agreed in June 2022,” said Øystein Kalleklev, Chief Executive of Flex LNG Management AS.

“Additionally, ‘Flex Aurora’ was delivered to Cheniere as the fifth and last ship under the agreement announced in April 2021,” he added.

“Flex LNG today has 12 LNG carriers on fixed-hire time charters and one ship, ‘Flex Artemis’, on a variable time charter,” stated Kalleklev.

The CEO noted that Flex’s first fully open ship, after charterer’s options, is in the middle of 2026 with three other ships coming open in 2027.

“With 2027 the earliest newbuilding delivery window and newbuilding prices at around $250M, we are therefore upbeat about the prospects of re-contracting our ships at attractive levels thereby adding further backlog to the company,” said Kalleklev.

Rate derivative gain

“For the first nine months of 2022, total net income was $147M, fuelled by $75M gains on interest rate derivatives, as we have been ahead of the curve locking in long-term interest rates at very attractive levels before the Federal Reserve started to hike US rates,” he explained.

Flex said it planned to optimize financing for the remaining seven ships in the fleet with the aim of increasing its cash position by a further $100M while at the same time improving overall financing terms.

“We have now secured refinancing for four of the seven ships with net proceeds of $110M. We are thus already ahead of the $100M target, and we expect the cash release to grow further as we are also making good progress on the refinancing of the remaining three ships,” said the CEO.

“Given the strong freight market, our extensive contract backlog and our super strong financial position we are therefore pleased to declare an ordinary quarterly dividend of $0.75 per share which should provide our shareholders with an attractive yield of approximately 10 percent,” added Kalleklev.

The company noted in its presentation that the fleet had been acquired at “historical attractive prices” compared to the newbuilding prices today, while book equity values reflect historical costs adjusted with regular depreciations.

Oct 13 (LNGJ) - The 173,400 cubic metres capacity vessel “Flex Constellation” is scheduled to deliver a US LNG cargo on October 19 to the UK South Hook import terminal at Milford Haven, according to shipping data. The cargo was lifted on October 4 from Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi export plant in Texas.

   In other shipping movements, the 211,980 cubic metres capacity Qatari Q-Flex carrier “Al Rekayyat” was traversing the English Channel on October 13 enroute to deliver a cargo on October 17 to the Polish Swinoujscie import terminal on the Baltic Sea coast. The cargo was loaded at Ras Laffan in the Arabian Gulf on September 26.

Flex LNG, the growing LNG shipping company with four vessels operating and nine others on order and whose largest shareholder is a company controlled by Norwegian magnate John Fredriksen, posted a rise in net profits as fourth-quarter spot LNG cargo rates reached record levels then slumped in the first quarter of 2019.