Norway’s Hoegh LNG has struck a sub-charter deal with the Australian charterer of one of its floating storage and regasification units that sees the FSRU hired out to Egypt into 2026.
Hoegh announced its agreement between import project developer Australian Industrial Energy (AIE) and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) for the deployment of its 170,000-cbm FSRU Hoegh Galleon (built 2019).
The vessel will be located in the Egyptian port of Ain Sokhna for a period of between 19 and 20 months, Hoegh said, after which it is expected to be deployed to AIE’s LNG terminal under construction at Port Kembla in New South Wales, Australia.
The agreement with EGAS is for an interim period from June 2024 to February 2026, the shipowner said.
Kpler data shows Hoegh Galleon off Singapore.
Hoegh LNG president and chief executive Erik Nyheim said: “Together with AIE and EGAS, we are pleased to provide Egypt with flexible infrastructure in support of energy security.”
The sub-charter arrangement with AIE and EGAS would seem a natural fit for Hoegh.
AIE’s project is reported to be running later than originally planned and Egypt — an LNG producer — is switching back to importing LNG to stave off energy shortages.
At one point Egypt hosted two FSRUs, including another Hoegh unit. But the country started experiencing shortfalls in its gas production in 2022.
Analyst Wood Mackenzie recently said in a report that the country became a net gas importer in the first half of 2023 and relied on piped Israeli imports to balance supply.
Hoegh Galleon was originally chartered out to AIE — backed by domestic mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy — in June 2022 under a 15-year deal after the Australian developer lifted subjects on a deal it signed in 2021. AIE had some flexibility to determine the start-up of the contract.
