Floating power provider Karpowership and Japanese shipowner partner Mitsui OSK Lines’ joint venture KARMOL plans to convert at least two of four recently purchased steam turbine LNG carriers into floating storage and regasification units for likely deployment to South Africa.
Those following the two companies told TradeWinds that Karpowership has wrapped up the purchase of four LNG carriers from Australia’s North West Shelf shipping partners.
The vessels — the 127,362-cbm Northwest Sanderling (built 1989), 127,585-cbm Northwest Snipe (built 1990), 127,594-cbm Northwest Sandpiper (built 1993) and 127,443-cbm Northwest Stormpetrel (built 1994) — are expected to be transferred to KARMOL, with two of them earmarked for conversions to FSRUs.
Discussions on the conversions are said to be in progress with shipyards.
Karpowership is understood to be closing in on contracts that would see its powerships deployed to South Africa in the near term. The units are said to be ready for use.
The FSRUs, which would supply regasified LNG to the floating power plants, would be sent in once they are completed.
The Turkish company has been in talks with South Africa on the deployment of its powerships there since 2021. This year it was granted access to the ports of Ngqura, Durban and Saldanha Bay for 20 years by South Africa’s Ministry of Transport as the country tries to move forward and solve its acute power shortage.
It is unclear what KARMOL plans to do with its other two new LNG carrier acquisitions but some sources have indicated that Karpowership is also looking at floating LNG production, which would require LNG tonnage.
Karpowership officials at the Gastech meeting in Singapore declined to comment on the reports about the future of the North West Shelf ships.
In August, TradeWinds named KARMOL as the upcoming buyer of North West Shelf’s remaining Moss-type quartet.
No price has yet emerged for the ships, which have been circulated for sale several times.
Karpowership previously bought two vessels in the North West Shelf shipping fleet, selling one — the 127,363-cbm Northwest Seaeagle (built 1992) — at a profit, with KARMOL converting the other — the 127,452-cbm FSRU KARMOL LNGT Powership Asia (ex-Northwest Shearwater, built 1991) — to an FSRU, which is now based in Brazil.
Aside from this vessel, KARMOL also sent a first LNG carrier-to-FSRU conversion to Senegal — the 125,000-cbm KARMOL LNGT Powership Africa (ex-Dwiputra, built 1994) — which arrived off Dakar in June 2021 but has yet to receive a shipment.
KARMOL also completed the conversion of a third LNG carrier — the 127,000-cbm LNG Vesta (built 1994) — into an FSRU named the FSRU KARMOL LNGT Powership Europe. But it has yet to be deployed.
The conclusion of the acquisitions of the final four LNG carriers in the North West Shelf LNG fleet would bring to an end a sales process that started five years ago.
Seven vessels were marketed for sale in March 2018 — six Moss-type steam turbine ships and one younger membrane-type vessel — as the ships neared the end of their contracts with the Australian LNG production project.
The sole membrane vessel — the 140,708-cbm Northwest Swan (built 2004) — was bought by Sinokor Merchant Marine and now trades as the HongKong Energy.
LNG market players said the sales process on each vessel was complicated by each ship having a different shareholding structure made up of North West Shelf infrastructure project partners.
Shipbrokers Braemar and Fearnley LNG have been named as the brokers handling the sale of the LNG carriers.
