Evangelos Marinakis-controlled Capital Gas has tied up at least two of its on-order raft of LNG carrier newbuildings to Japanese trading giant JERA.

Sources following the company named JERA as having booked more than one vessel for periods of between 10 and 13 years.

The charter rate on the ships is said to be in the region of $105,000 per day.

The vessels are due for delivery dates between 2024 and 2026.

JERA adds a new name to Capital Gas’ rapidly growing list of charterers for its now 20-strong LNG carrier fleet.

To date, Capital Gas has notched up charters for its vessels with companies including BP, Cheniere Energy, Engie, QatarEnergy, Hartree Partners and Tokyo Gas.

JERA has been upping its LNG purchases.

In April, the company inked a deal with US producer Venture Global LNG to buy one million tonnes per annum of destination-free product from its upcoming CP2 LNG project over a 20-year period.

In 2022, JERA also signed up to buy volumes from Oman LNG and the new operator of Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project.

In March, it emerged that Capital Gas had hit the 20-ship mark for its LNG fleet by adding two more newbuildings to its growing stash of vessels at Hyundai Group yards.

The company paid about $259.5m each for the vessels, which are due for delivery from Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries by March 2027.

They were inked just two months after the Greek owner firmed up two earlier options at Hyundai Heavy Industries in January on LNG newbuildings priced at around $250m each.

The new orders placed this year boosted Capital Gas’ on-order newbuildings to 11 ships plus its nine existing trading vessels.

TradeWinds reported in April that seven of the newbuildings were believed to be open.

But the unspecified number of ships fixed by JERA and ongoing discussions with West African producer Nigeria LNG over another two newbuildings make the picture more blurry now.

In the first quarter of 2023, Capital Gas took delivery of the 174,000-cbm LNG newbuilding Asterix 1, which started its term charter with Hartree Partners.

Of Capital Gas’ under-construction vessels, the 174,000-cbm Axios II is scheduled for handover at the end of 2023 and currently is shown as charter-free. Four more vessels are due for delivery in 2024, another quartet in 2026, with the most recent pair to follow by March 2027.

In a results statement in May, Marinakis’ US-listed company Capital Product Partners expressed optimism about the LNG sector.

“Looking ahead, the outlook for the LNG carrier sector appears to be positive throughout 2023,” it said.