US-listed Excelerate Energy is looking at expanding its fleet of floating storage and regasification units
Speaking on a second-quarter results call, Excelerate president and chief executive Steven Kobos said all of the company’s FSRUs are fully utilised but “additional infrastructure is needed” to drive growth and fleet flexibility.
Kobos said this remains a “top priority” for Excelerate, which is due to take delivery of a single 170,000-cbm FSRU newbuilding from Hyundai Heavy Industries in June 2026.
The CEO said the company is currently looking at conventional LNG carriers for managing its supply volumes and is “evaluating opportunities” to secure new FSRUs to support its integrated supply and regasification offerings.
Asked by an analyst to elaborate further on whether the company is looking to acquire or charter LNG vessels long-term, Kobos said at this point Excelerate is still “refining that strategy”.
He said much will depend on how the company procures LNG supply for Bangladesh, where Excelerate is still pursuing its Pyra LNG project.
Speaking about the company’s longer-term goals on LNG supply, Kobos said Excelerate is pursuing a combination of gas sales agreements downstream from its FSRUs, opportunistic LNG marketing and strategic partnerships with LNG producers.
He said putting these building blocks in place will allow the company to develop and deploy integrated LNG infrastructure at attractive rates of return.
During the call Kobos said Excelerate is looking to sign additional LNG sales and purchase contracts this year with other producers, on top of the 20-year deal it has already concluded with Venture Global LNG, to enable the company to offer more volumes to customers.
He said that as the company looks to scale the business having a diversified portfolio of LNG supply will allow Excelerate to offer more flexible and cost-effective products to customers.
The CEO said US Gulf Coast LNG production projects are “especially interesting” for Excelerate as they represent free-on-board, destination-free volumes that are an “ideal fit” for the company’s portfolio.
Excelerate is also looking to establish an LNG and gas marketing platform.
Kobos said the LNG market is expected to remain tight in the near term.
He said European Union and Asia-Pacific countries are focused on the coming winter, which, according to the International Energy Agency, if it is cold could increase natural gas consumption by the equivalent of 22 million tonnes compared to last year.
But he said after 2024 the supply balance should improve when about 200 million tonnes per annum of new supply is due to come online.
