Small-scale shipowner and terminal developer Avenir LNG has a big year ahead as it morphs into an operational supply company with new chief executive Peter Mackey at the helm.
The outfit — a joint venture between Stolt-Nielsen, Golar LNG and Hoegh LNG — expects to take delivery of five outstanding newbuildings and bring its first onshore receiving terminal onstream in Sardinia, Italy.
Mackey said: “2021 is going to be a transformational year for us.”
He added that Avenir had been a development company until October last year. But that changed with the delivery of the first of six newbuildings — the 7,500-cbm Avenir Advantage (built 2020), which is now in service with Petronas.
Mackey, who joined the company as chief commercial officer just over a year ago, was appointed chief executive in mid-November when his predecessor, Milorad Doljanin, moved elsewhere.
Brazil-bound
Avenir expects to take delivery of its second newbuilding — the 7,500-cbm Avenir Accolade — from Keppel Offshore & Marine's Nantong Shipyard in China in the coming weeks.
The vessel will start its charter in Brazil with Hygo Energy Transition, which is being bought by New Fortress Energy.
A third vessel — the 7,500-cbm Avenir Aspiration — launched this month and will be delivered in the second quarter of this year.
This week saw the launch of the company’s first 20,000-cbm vessel — the Avenir Allegiance — at Nantong CIMC Sinopacific Offshore & Engineering in China. The ship is due to be delivered in August.
Two more newbuildings — the 7,500-cbm Avenir Ascension and 20,000-cbm Avenir Achievement — are scheduled for handovers in the early part of the fourth quarter and the end of the year, respectively.
However, it is not all about shipping for Avenir.
Turning point
The company reached mechanical and electrical completion of its 10,600-cbm Higas LNG Terminal on the island of Sardinia on 30 December 2020 and is starting to commission the facility. It is due to be in service at the start of the second quarter of this year.
Avenir will position the Avenir Aspiration in the Mediterranean to serve the new import terminal.
Higas was originally due to start up in August 2020. Mackey said the delay has been principally due to Covid-19, with Italy particularly hard-hit in the early stages of the pandemic.
Avenir, which owns 80% of Higas — Italian companies Gas & Heat, the terminal’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, and CPL Concordia hold the balance — has already been supplying Sardinia with LNG trucked over by ferry from France or Spain.
But the terminal’s start-up will be a turning point for the company.
“This is a fully integrated project for Avenir,” Mackey said. "It goes direct from sourcing the LNG, bringing it into Sardinia, putting it through our own terminal and selling and distributing it to our downstream customers throughout the island. That's a hugely exciting moment for us.”
Lightering concept
Mackey said the company is in “fairly advanced negotiations” with several LNG suppliers either for volumes lifted directly from production facilities, as reloads or direct purchases.
However, another option — and something of a first for the industry, he believes — is to use the Avenir Aspiration to lighter small cargoes directly from larger LNG carriers passing through the Mediterranean.
“Lightering from LNG carriers, we think, is not only a great supply option for Sardinia but is something we are advocating and investigating very actively as a source of supply around the world,” Mackey said.
| Ship | Size (cbm) | Delivery | Yard | Charterer |
| Avenir Advantage | 7,500 | 2020 | Keppel Nantong | Petronas* |
| Avenir Accolade | 7,500 | 2021 | Keppel Nantong | New Fortress Energy |
| Avenir Aspiration | 7,500 | 2021 | CIMC Sinopacific | Avenir LNG |
| Avenir Allegiance | 20,000 | 2021 | CIMC Sinopacific | Shanghai SIPG Energy Service Co (SSES) |
| Avenir Ascension | 7,500 | 2022 | CIMC Sinopacific | Avenir LNG |
| Avenir Achievement | 20,000 | 2022 | CIMC Sinopacific | New Fortress/Shell |
*Ship is time-chartered from Future Horizons, a 50:50 MISC-Avenir LNG joint venture
All of Avenir’s six small-scale vessels can be used for LNG bunkering or supply.
In small-scale LNG, Mackey said it is about building demand in regions or developing projects where there are small pockets of demand that are not necessarily enough for a single point-to-point or an integrated supply project.
Open tonnage
So, in the Mediterranean, the Avenir Aspiration’s principal role will be as a supply vessel for Sardinia, with the terminal also available to supply other areas on the island by truck or ISO containers for export. But the ship can also be deployed on bunkering business in and around the island, and provide supply to other points of stranded demand nearby.
Avenir’s three later-delivering ships currently remain open.
Mackey said the company has interest against all of them and may think about chartering the vessels out or hybrid models of employment for the ships.
But it also has the intention to use the vessels to serve its own diverse set of downstream demand positions.
“The intent is to build an integrated LNG supply company that is enabled by our assets," he said. "Our preference is always to have those assets available to enable the bigger strategic aim of the company.”
