Norway’s Knutsen OAS Shipping has exercised options for two LNG carrier newbuildings at Hyundai Heavy Industries after netting additional charter deals from Poland’s Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo (PGNiG).
An arm of the Polish LNG importer, PGNiG Supply & Trading, said it signed a contract with Knutsen for the two 174,000-cbm vessels, which will be delivered in the first half of 2024.
PGNiG’s trading business said it will be the “sole user” of the vessels for 10 years, with an option to extend the hire on the ships. Knutsen will be responsible for manning and maintaining the ships.
The pair double up PGNiG’s long-term chartered LNG newbuildings to four vessels.
The Polish company signed up to two 2023-delivering LNG carriers priced at $187.5m each with Knutsen at the end of October 2020.
Newbuilding haul
The four ships for Knutsen come in addition to nine LNG newbuildings and one LNG bunker vessel the shipowner has contracted against Shell charters and one vessel for Engie.
Pawel Majewski, who is president of the management board of PGNiG, said the company is "consistently developing" its position on the international LNG market.
“Chartering of the tankers is an important step to implement our plans in this area. It is an optimal solution, ensuring certainty and at the same time flexibility of logistic operations, which are an important element of building competitive advantage.”
PGNiG said it will primarily use the vessels to ship the LNG volumes it has contracted in the US under free on board (FOB) deals.
Big buyer
The doubling up of its newbuildings comes as the Polish trader announced it has increased the amount of LNG it is buying from the US.
PGNiG said it was amending existing FOB sales and purchase agreements — SPAs — to buy a further 2 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Venture Global LNG over 20 years. This entails upping its account at the producer’s Calcasieu Pass project from 1 mtpa to 1.5 mtpa and increasing those from its Plaquemines development from 2.5 mtpa to 4 mtpa.
This bumps up the trader’s LNG purchases from Venture Global to 5.5 mtpa, with the first deliveries to PGNiG slated for 2023.
“LNG plays a vital role in PGNiG’s strategy,” Majewski said. “We plan to develop our commercial activity in the global trading market.”
He said expanding the cooperation with Venture Global LNG fits both these goals.
