First Avenir LNG newbuilding leaves yard for gas trials

Avenir LNG's first newbuilding has left Keppel Nantong Shipyard in China for gas trials.

The 7,500-cbm Avenir Advantage departed down the Yangtze River from the yard on Monday. The vessel reportedly attracted some attention as one of the largest LNG carriers to travel down the waterway.

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The ship is due to undergo gas trials for the next two weeks.

Once these have been finalised it will deliver to Malaysian state energy company Petronas which has chartered the ship in for three years.

The small-scale LNG vessel is expected to be used for bunkering operations out of Pengerang in south-east Malaysia.

A sistership newbuilding, the Avenir Accolade, is currently scheduled for handover by the end of this year or early in 2021 to charterer Golar Power. The company, which is planning to trade under the new name Hygo Energy Transition, will deploy the vessel to Brazil.

The newbuilding plans for Avenir — a joint venture between Golar LNG, Stolt-Nielsen and Hoegh LNG — have been severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. That makes the yard departure of the first vessel something of a milestone achievement.

Chinese yard lockdowns have slowed construction work while the tanks and gas handling systems, which were built in Italy, were also hit by virus delays.

Avenir is building six small-scale LNG carriers in China in total. Two more 7,500-cbm vessels with ice-class 1B and a pair of 20,000-cbm ships are on order at Nantong CIMC Sinopacific Offshore & Engineering.

The company will use one of its 7,500-cbm newbuildings to start up its own under-construction LNG terminal in Sardinia.

To date three of the six vessels, which were all ordered speculatively, remain unchartered, although the company has hinted that it has options to employ them.