Newly US-listed Cool Company (CoolCo) has the potential to double its existing LNG carrier fleet in the coming years, Idan Ofer said.
Ofer, who heads CoolCo’s lead shareholder Eastern Pacific Shipping, told TradeWinds: “It is not my way of doing business to stay with 13 ships.
“We don’t sit still in the company [EPS]. We are always growing and expanding so one should expect the same thing here.”
Asked how big CoolCo’s fleet could become, he said: “I think we should double the size from where we are now.
“But it is not so simple to achieve that,” he warned citing the current high cost of LNG newbuildings which are approaching the $260m mark and the far off available delivery slots in 2027 and 2028.
“It is less obvious now that newbuilding prices are so high to expand that way so we have to look for other ways. But there is no question that we have the capacity to expand.”
Ofer said that when Eastern Pacific Shipping shifts assets from the private sector to the public company — a move he said is “just like JF [John Fredriksen], complement” — the company is doing it at their entry costs not at market prices.
He highlighted that CoolCo has the option to buy two under-construction LNG carrier newbuildings from Eastern Pacific at $234m when LNG newbuilding prices are at around $257m.
Ofer was speaking at a packed reception of many well-known faces from the shipowning, shipbroking, financing, chartering and shipbuilding world who had assembled to mark the opening of CoolCo’s new office in central Oslo after the company moved out from the premises previously shared with Golar LNG.
The Eastern Pacific principal — whose Singapore-headquartered company has built up a fleet of 230 vessels including over 80 on-order newbuildings — had hoofed it from the US, where CoolCo had been celebrating their recent listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
“I am not a public markets guy,” Ofer confided.
He sees the listing of CoolCo — which was formed in early 2022 after Eastern Pacific sealed a deal to buy the LNG shipping assets of Golar LNG — as transferring from one public company to another.
“It didn’t have to be that way but I kind of like it,” Ofer said. “It brings some discipline.”
He is bullish on the future for LNG.
“If the world continues on this path of wanting to reduce CO2, then LNG is a natural way of doing it,” he said.
He also sees “huge capacity” for the US on exports.
Ofer said the world is moving into two trading silos with Russia-China-India as one, and the rest of the world in the other. “We are moving in two parallel dimensions, which makes it interesting for us as gas has to move longer distances in the world,” he said.
On alternative fuels, including LNG, he said Eastern Pacific is looking at everything.
“We are agnostic. As long as we can reduce the CO2 footprintthat’s what I’m interested in. I’m not saying this is going to be a winner, that is going to be a winner. I’m not in a position to say that.”
But he admitted to having been quick off the mark.
“There was a lot of criticism when we started with dual-fuel container ships, bulkers and tankers. All my competitors — they couldn’t get their heads around what we are doing.
“But now they realise they missed out on the technology and the newbuilding prices because — except the liner guys — all the conventional shipowners hesitated.”
