LNG

The Panama Canal Authority, which is trying to increase transits by liquefied natural gas carriers and other energy vessels and containerships, said it would again increase the number of ships that transit the waterway daily as water levels start to recover on the Canal after a prolonged drought blamed on the “El Niño” weather effects.

AES Corp. of the US has closed sell-downs of minority stakes in its liquefied natural gas and power businesses in the Dominican Republic and its AES Colón business in Panama for proceeds of $338 million.

“This includes the transactions announced in September for proceeds of $179M after purchase price adjustments at closing, as well as sell-downs of additional stakes in the businesses through the expansion of existing partnerships with Grupo Estrella and Grupo Popular's subsidiary, AFI Popular, through one of its closed-end funds for $159M,” said a statement.

Under these deals AES sold 20 percent of its businesses in the Dominican Republic and 35 percent of AES Colón in Panama.

The AES assets in the Dominican Republic include an LNG regasification terminal with a 160,000 cubic metres capacity storage tank.

They also include the AES Andres 319 megawatts combined-cycle gas-fired power plant, the DPP 328 MW CCGT power plant as well as an additional 150 MW of solar and wind power plants.

The AES Colón assets comprise a 381MW CCGT plant with an adjacent regasification facility that has an LNG storage tank with capacity of 180,000 cubic metres.

AES, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said it would  continue operating its businesses in the Dominican Republic and Panama with reamaining ownership interests of 65 percent in each business.

“We are very pleased to announce the closing of these transactions and to continue the great progress on our expanded and accelerated asset sale proceeds target,” said Stephen Coughlin, AES Executive Vice Present and Chief Financial Officer.

Various deals

“These transactions include the closing of the two previously announced sell-downs, as well as the sale of an additional 10 percent in the Dominican Republic and an additional 15 percent of AES Colón in Panama,” Coughlin added.

The deals that were closed included the sale of 20 percent of AES's businesses in the Dominican Republic with 10 percent going to Grupo Popular's subsidiary, AFI Popular, through one of its closed-end funds.

A further 5 percent was bought by Grupo Linda and 5 percent has gone to Grupo Estrella.

The sales of 35 percent of AES Colón included 20 percent to Grupo Linda and 15 percent to Grupo Estrella.

Since its third quarter 2023 earnings in November, AES has also announced the signing of an agreement to sell its Mong Duong 2 coal facility in Vietnam.

It has additionally sold down its stake in Fluence, a products and services company of Germany's Siemens, from 33 percent to 29 percent, effectively monetizing 12 percent of its stake for proceeds of $160M.

Kanfer Shipping AS, one of the leading companies for small-scale gas solutions based in Norway, has signed an accord on establishing an attractive hub for liquefied natural gas bunkering and small-scale LNG distribution in and out of the Central American nation of Panama.

US energy company Sempra, operator of the Cameron LNG export plant in Louisiana, has signed an amended engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with engineering firm Bechtel Energy for the Port Arthur LNG export project in Texas.

Bechtel and the Sempra unit, Sempra Infrastructure, have amended the EPC contract for the proposed Phase 1 liquefaction project in Jefferson County in Texas to a new price of approximately $10.5 billion.

“The execution of the final contract is a critical step in advancing Phase 1 of Port Arthur LNG toward a final investment decision,” said Justin Bird, Chief Executive of the Sempra Infrastructure unit.

“Based on robust customer interest, we know that Port Arthur LNG is highly attractive to the global market and we look forward to providing customers with access to secure, abundant and reliable US LNG,” added Bird.

Paul Marsden, President of Bechtel, said the firm was delighted to continue its partnership with Sempra after constructing the Cameron export plant at Hackberry.

“Alongside Sempra Infrastructure, Bechtel is ready to continue active construction in the Gulf Coast and bring more opportunities to the local region” added Marsden.

Contract scope

The Sempra EPC contract with Bechtel covers engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, start-up, performance testing and operator training activities for Phase 1 of the new Texas plant.

The Port Arthur Phase 1 project has all its permits and is expected to include an initial two liquefaction Trains with a combined 13.5 million tonnes per annum of output.

Sempra said it was already working on a similarly-sized Port Arthur LNG Phase 2 project with “active marketing” taking place. This would take total production eventually to 27 MTPA.

California-based Sempra has signed a series of supply deals for Port Arthur Phase 1 involving four companies.

They are the Polish Oil & Gas Company, the German utility RWE Supply & Trading, UK chemicals company INEOS and US major ConocoPhillips.

The Sempra Infrastructure unit of Sempra also contains the other LNG assets like the Cameron plant and the Costa Azul export project in Mexico.

Earlier in 2022 Sempra agreed to sell a 10 percent interest in Sempra Infrastructure Partners to a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates, for $1.78Bln in cash.

The San Diego-based utility business of Sempra includes San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas Co. 

The United States Government forecasts that liquefied natural gas exports would hit an all-time high through the normally quieter Northern Hemisphere summer from May to August and even amid higher benchmark Henry Hub prices.

Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, the Japanese shipping company known as NYK Line which has a US LNG investment and a fleet of 660 vessels from tankers to containerships and car carriers, has signed six long-term charters for LNG carriers with China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Flex LNG, the Norwegian shipping company with a fleet of 13 carriers, said that Cheniere Marketing, a unit of the operator of the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi export plants on the US Gulf Coast, has declared its option to employ a fifth LNG carrier under existing time charter agreements.

Cheniere and Flex LNG have also agreed that the 174,100 cubic metres capacity “Flex Volunteer” will be the fourth ship under the agreement and that this vessel will be delivered to Cheniere in mid-April 2022.

The delivery is ahead of the original schedule of the third quarter of 2022.

“The ‘Flex Volunteer’ charter with for a duration of 3.5 years has therefore been extended by about 2.5 months to facilitate early delivery of the ship to Cheniere,” said Flex LNG.

“The ‘Flex Aurora’ will be the fifth ship to be delivered to Cheniere, and she will commence her 3.5-year time charter during the third quarter of 2022 according to the original agreement,” added the company.

The fleet owner, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Oslo Børs in Norway and headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, noted that Cheniere took delivery  in 2021 of the “Flex Vigilant”, the “Flex Endeavour” and the “Flex Ranger”.

These ships were supplied under time charters with a minimum duration of between 3 and 3.8 years.

All existing Flex LNG ships are large LNG carriers with a cargo capacity of between 173,400 to 174,000 cubic metres and are fitted with efficient dual-fuel, two-stroke propulsion (ME-GI/XDF).

“This makes the ships particularly ideal for large parcel, long haul transportation with the industry's lowest carbon footprint and unit transportation cost,” said Flex LNG.

The company added that the time charter party agreements remained subject to certain closing conditions in connection with the delivery and acceptance of the LNG carriers to Cheniere.

March 22 (LNGJ) - Peru’s LNG exports in March are heading for the North Asian markets of China and South Korea, according to data from energy company PeruPetro. Four vessels have left the Pampa Melchorita liquefaction plant on the Pacific Coast of Peru with three headed for South Korea on the 173,540 cubic metres capacity carrier “Megara”, the 135,400 cubic metres capacity carrier “Madrid Spirit” and on the 173,400 cubic metres capacity vessel “Sevilla Knutsen”.

   During the current winter season Peru has also shipped cargoes to Europe. The fourth cargo lifted so far in March from the Peruvian plant is heading for Tangshan in China on the 170,200 cubic metres capacity vessel “SFC Melampus”.

US company Sycar said it would soon supply another liquefied natural gas shipment to the South American nation of Ecuador following the first LNG ISO container delivery earlier in January 2022.

As the Qatari Q-Flex liquefied natural gas carrier “Al Safliyah”, the largest LNG vessel to transit the expanded Panama Canal, is scheduled to arrive at a European port on June 12 with a US cargo in a notable three-continent trading voyage, Qatargas has given details of another shipping first related to Spanish cargo deliveries.