Jovo Energy is expanding its footprint in the LPG carrier market considerably with a big-ticket purchase of two modern VLGCs from Fortune Oil.
Brokers in London and Athens relate that the Chinese energy trader is spending $90m each on the 84,000-cbm Chinagas Legend and Chinagas Glory (both built 2020).
The high price is said to be including consideration for a time charter with Swiss-based energy trader Mercuria.
Fortune Oil managers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The firm is closely linked with Hong Kong-listed China Gas Holdings (CGH), China’s largest integrated gas services.
Managers at Shanghai-listed Jovo were also unavailable for comment.
However, shipping data banks show the deal is already moving into the completion phase.
According to S&P Global, the Chinagas Glory changed hands earlier this month. As of February, the ship is trading as the Gas Nouveau Crystal with a newly established, Singapore-based entity called Summer Singing Shipping as its registered owner.
The new name of the ship closely resembles that of another VLGC under Jovo ownership — the 93,000-cbm Gas Nouveau Bauhinia (built 2024). This is the dual-fuel vessel that TradeWinds reported Jovo as ordering at China’s Jiangnan Shipyard nearly three years ago.
These ships are far from the only vessels in Jovo’s fleet.
The company is about to take delivery of two small LPG carriers from Jiangsu Yixiang Shipbuilding — the 4,500-cbm Yuan Shan 1 and Yuan Shan 9 (both built 2024). Jovo took a 40% stake in the troubled yard last year as part of a joint effort with Huaxiang Shipping to revitalise it.
Jovo became China’s first private LNG terminal operator when it fired up its Dongguan Jiufeng facility on the Pearl River in 2012.
In 2021, the company was listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Jovo is already widely known as an owner and operator LNG carriers. A Jovo official indicated to TradeWinds last year that the company was operating eight ships of that type at the time.
S&P currently lists the company as owner of one LNG newbuilding just delivered from Jiangnan Shipyard, the 79,800-cbm Mulan Spirit (built 2024). Brokers had said last summer that Jovo offered that ship for sale but no such deal seems to have materialised.
Another LNG ship owned by the company is the 155,000-cbm Arrow Spirit (built 2008) — a vessel Jovo acquired from Imabari Shipbuilding’s shipowning arm, Shoei Kisen Kaisha.
