Chinese trader Jovo has been named as the buyer of a 15-year-old steam turbine LNG carrier that has been sold by Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines.

Industry players said Jovo, which recently announced its intention to move forward with a long-planned initial public offering, is paying around $37m for the 138,000-cbm LNG Pioneer (built 2005).

The company is expected to use the vessel to grow its trading operations.

Jovo and MOL were contacted for this article but did not respond by the time TradeWinds went to press.

Sales of secondhand LNG carriers have been rarities. But brokers expect them to increase as more of these older, smaller and less-efficient steam turbine LNG ships are redelivered from long-term contracts.

Owned fleet

Jovo said this month it plans to issue up to 120m new shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange to raise CNY 2.68bn ($415m).

Announcing the green light for its listing, Jovo said the funds raised from the IPO would mainly be used to fund two LNG newbuildings and build up its own fleet.

In 2018, the trader signed up for a pair of 80,000-cbm LNG newbuildings with China’s Jiangnan Shipyard. But it has been awaiting approval from authorities for its IPO before moving ahead with them.

Jovo, which is recorded as having four LNG carriers on charter, said: “It will be important for us to have deepsea shipping capacity to secure our cargo sources and supply downstream clients ... the international shipping markets are volatile and we urgently need our own fleet for logistics operations.”

The company was most recently reported as chartering in the GasLog Partners-controlled, 145,000-cbm Methane Shirley Elisabeth (built 2007) for two years.

Jovo has also required smaller-size LNG carriers to access its draught-restricted Dongguan LNG terminal in Guangdong province and is reported to have the 46,400-cbm Saga Dawn (built 2019) and 65,000-cbm LNG Lerici (built 1998) on hire.

The trader has experimented with breakbulking shipments from larger motherships to bring in volumes to this facility.

In the last few years, the LNG Pioneer has been mainly deployed shipping cargoes from Australia to terminals in Asia.

The vessel effectively ended up with MOL following an earlier split of assets with Belgian shipowner Exmar.