LNG

Temasek, the Singapore wealth fund that recently sold all liquefied natural gas interests to Shell, plans to focus on investing in Chinese companies with large domestic sales sales rather than those that depend on foreign markets.

UK major Shell is said to be finalizing the acquisition of liquefied natural gas assets of Pavilion Energy, the natural gas company set up by Singapore’s wealth fund Temasek, to give the Asian island state energy security.

Singapore wealth fund Temasek is close to completing a seven-month long sale process for the Asian island nation’s Pavilion Energy set up by Temasek in 2013 to develop liquefied natural gas assets.

Empyrean Energy, the UK-listed oil and gas company with main interests in Indonesia and China, reported a successful share placement and debt restructuring and provided an update on supplying pipeline natural gas to Singapore in competition to LNG and made advances with its Topaz project offshore China.

CMA CGM, the French container shipping line based in the Mediterranean port of Marseille and the third-largest in the world and with a growing fleet of LNG-powered vessels, has a new service to the LNG fuel location of Ennore port on the East Coast of India.

The containerships will expand port coverage with a direct call to Ennore, near Chennai in India, on the Westbound leg of the service connecting North Europe and the Mediterranean with Oceania as from June 2023.

“This new call will offer our customers a fast export connection from the main commercial area in South East India to Europe together with a direct import connection from Australia and Singapore,” said CMA CGM.

“Ennore is also a natural gateway from/to the Inland Container Depot of Bangalore covered with efficient rail connectivity,” added the French company.

The other LNG fuel ports in CMA CGM’s so-called NEMO service include Fos Sur Mer near Marseille, La Spezia in Italy, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Malta and Singapore.

French LNG storage tanks designer GTT is supplying the tanks for six more LNG-powered containerships ordered from South Korea by CMA CGM.

The six containerships are being constructed at the Korean shipyard of Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.

The vessels, each capable of carrying 8,000 containers, will be equipped with an LNG fuel tank with a capacity of 6,000 cubic metres.

The deliveries of the vessels are scheduled from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the fourth quarter of 2025.

CMA CGM is a pioneer of LNG-powered containerships and has about 12 more of the vessels being built in China.

The shipping line has said it is aiming to have a fleet of 44 LNG-fuelled containerships by 2024.

The 12 China-built vessels will be delivered between the last quarter of 2023 and the third quarter of 2024.

The construction contracts for those CMA CGM newbuilds were awarded to Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding and Jiangnan Shipyard Co.

Each of the Chinese yards is building six vessels able to carry between 13,000 and 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of containers.

The first ever LNG-powered containership was delivered to CMA CGM from the Hudong-Zhonghua yard and entered commercial operation in September 2020.

The 23,000 TEU “CMA CGM Jacques Saadé” was named after the late Lebanon-born founder of the shipping line and father of current Chairman Rodolphe Saadé.

Sembcorp Marine, the Singapore-based shipbuilding and conversions yard for offshore energy platforms, including for the LNG sector, has issued a further explanation to shareholders scheduled to meet on February 16 to vote on the merger with Keppel Offshore and Marine.

Shenzhen Energy, the Chinese natural gas and power company, said it signed a long-term LNG supply agreement with UK major BP for volumes to fuel gas-fired power plants in what is the second large contract signed by a Chinese company in November 2022.

Singapore’s main LNG company Pavilion Energy and the biggest Chinese LNG importer, China National Offshore Oil Corp., have signed an accord for strategic cooperation on LNG bunkering from Northwest Europe to China’s coastal areas.

Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultants and a subsidiary the US Verisk analytics business, has launched a new data and solutions platform called Lens Gas & LNG.

“As the newest addition to Wood Mackenzie’s Lens data analytics platform, Lens Gas & LNG offers a single tool to explore all gas and LNG data, analysis and modelling capabilities,” said the Edinburgh-headquartered UK company.

Wood Mackenzie has expanded its offerings beyond simple consultancy and forecasting since being acquired in 2015 by Nasdaq-listed US firm Verisk, which is based in New Jersey.

“This seamless Lens experience brings Wood Mackenzie’s renowned expertise, analyses and modelling insights together to enable faster, more accurate operational and strategic planning and portfolio management,” said a statement.

Wood Mackenzie said its Lens® platform aims to be an industry standard in critical decision-support to provide answers to complex questions across the natural resources value chain.

“Lens Gas & LNG is a must-have solution for any energy market participant,” said Andrew Pearson, Global Head of Gas & LNG at Wood Mackenzie.

“It is built to support customers with strategic planning, valuations, M&A, business operations, strategic sourcing and trading,” added the firm.

Wood Mackenzie said the Lens platform aimed to quantify risk and identify opportunities through understanding market dynamics and their impact on investments.

The consultancy and data company explained that users can rapidly develop alternative, bespoke market outlooks that leverage Wood Mackenzie’s industry-standard models to produce detailed analysis.

“The gas & LNG industry has undergone significant changes over the last few years, from new innovations spurred by the energy transition to major global events impacting supply, demand, trade flows and prices,” said the firm.

“To help navigate these complexities, Lens Gas & LNG brings markets forecast and modelling workflows to its current asset optimisation capabilities to provide a uniquely integrated view of gas & LNG markets and assets,” it stated.

Pavilion Energy of Singapore and Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines held a ship-naming ceremony at Sembcorp Marine’s Tuas Boulevard shipyard for the 12,000 cubic metres capacity bunkering vessel “Brassavola”, the largest of its kind to be built in the Asian city state.