Turkey’s Karpowership is separating its shipping activities into a new division, Kinetics, announcing: “We decided to put all our LNG efforts under a sub-brand.”
The company’s head of business strategy, Mehmet Katmer, said the restructuring phase to carve out the new entity is underway, with the goal to complete the process by the end of the year.
“This separate entity will focus on our LNG efforts going into the future,” he said.
The main client for these vessels will be Karpowership, Katmer explained.
But Kinetics would be looking into opportunities such as LNG carriers for a simple voyage, multiple trades or maybe even a floating storage and regasification unit for a third-party client if it has one available.
The company wants to remain on the infrastructure side rather than trading the molecules.
But Katmer said that having a third-party client on FSRUs instead of simply being an integral part of Karpowership, would “change the business dramatically”.
He said the company is now setting up small commercial and technical teams that will be fully focused on Kinetics with the aim to grow in LNG.
“This is an LNG platform,” he said. “Let’s see where it will take us.”
Karpowership has already made a break into the FSRU sector.
It teamed up with Japanese shipowner Mitsui OSK Lines in 2019 setting up Karmol — a joint venture to provide FSRUs able to supply regasified LNG to the Turkish company’s powerships.
Karmol would be part of Kinetics, Katmer said.
He explained that of 10 secondhand LNG carriers either bought for conversion or already converted to FSRUs, six are jointly controlled by Karmol, with four directly owned by Karpowership.
To date, three FSRUs have been completed and deployed. One is working with several powerships in Brazil. A second was delivered to Senegal in June 2021 and is on standby until the client is ready to use it.
Katmer said a third floater is in the Dominican Republic and the partners hope to find a use for it in that region.
Two more of the 10 LNG carriers — one owned by Karmol and the other by Karpowership — are under conversion to FSRUs at Seatrium’s facilities in Singapore.
Katmer said that of the five remaining LNG carriers one, the 154,472-cbm Karadeniz LNGT Powership Anatolia (ex-LNG Unity, built 2006) is trading as an LNG carrier.
Two are smaller vessels acquired this year. In May, TradeWinds named Karpowership as the buyer of the 65,000-cbm Portovenere (built 1997) and sister ship Lerici (built 1998), which have since been renamed, the Karadeniz LNGT Powership Black Sea and Karadeniz LNGT Powership Marmara, respectively.
Katmer revealed that Karpowership is working on a design and may convert these two uniquely sized vessels into FSRUs in its own shipyard.
He said the remaining two LNG carriers are “under development” as the company considers whether to convert them into FSRUs or floating LNG production units.
Heading downstream
In the long term, Karpowership is also looking into the LNG bunkering business which may eventually form part of its new shipping arm.
Katmer said the company is currently in feasibility study mode on this.
But he highlighted that with FSRU assets globally — in Brazil, West Africa and the Caribbean — and if another unit was stationed in the Mediterranean, then he believes these would prove useful locations for LNG bunkering.
As Karpowership has the commercial control of these FSRUs, it makes sense to look downstream and see if there are opportunities there, Katmer said.
On the increasing number of LNG steam-turbine ships emerging for sale, he said: “We are always on the market to buy. As long as we like the vessel and as long as the price is right, I think we constantly monitor the market.”
Looking ahead into 2025, Katmer sees Karpowership focusing particularly on projects in the Americas and Asia, adding that the company already has a large footprint in Africa.
He said Karpowership is also looking into AI-originated demand, highlighting that while some countries have data centre investments, they do not have enough power, so the company is working on solutions for this.
