US-listed New Fortress Energy has expanded its floating LNG (FLNG) production ambitions by adding two new sites in Mexico to its planned US Gulf location with the potential to produce a total of 8 million tonnes per annum of LNG.
Updating on what the company calls its “Fast LNG” business on a second-quarter results call New Fortress chief financial officer Chris Guinta said New Fortress has formed a partnership with Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) for a site off Altamira in Mexico which can accommodate up to three FLNG assets.
Gas would be supplied by an existing underutilised pipeline that could supply feedgas volumes from the US, he said.
At Lakach off Veracruz New Fortress is working with state energy company Pemex to develop 1 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves lying 70 kilometres offshore.
In addition, the company is already in the permitting for 2.8 mtpa of capacity off Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico and has responded to questions on this.
In total, he said New Fortress has 8 mtpa of FLNG “under development”.
Guinta said New Fortress’ FLNG1 unit is now 70% complete and he said the company is maintaining its “aggressive timeline” on converting its offshore infrastructure assets into Fast LNG units.
The CFO said the conversion of the jack-up rigs is nearly done which allows them to be ready for the installation of liquefaction modules in November.
He said the first Fast FLNG assets will be ready by the first quarter of 2023 allowing them to be moved offshore for commissioning.
New Fortress gave a summary of its first five FLNG units.
The company is building three of these — FLNG1 being a conversion of three jack-up rigs named as Pioneer 1, II and III and FLNGs 2 and 3 listed as fixed jackets — at Kiewit Shipyard shipyard in Texas. These are scheduled for delivery dates from 2023 through to 2024.
The US outfit is converting to Sevan semi-submersible rigs into FLNG units 4 and 5 at Sembcorp Marine in Singapore for delivery dates in 2024.
New Fortress managing director Andrew Dete said the company had generated the cash needed for its FLNG business by asset sales.
He said the company had raised over $2bn of cash through the sale of its Sergipe power plant project in Brazil and its sale and leaseback deal on LNG carriers with Apollo.
Dete said New Fortress is moving from owning and operating ships to chartering in vessels.
Under the deal with Apollo — which is expected to close the week of 15 August, New Fortress owns a 20% stake in the new joint venture, nets $1.1bn in proceeds and maintains long-term control over the vessels, he said.
“This is a platform we plan on growing as we need more ships for our operations,” Dede said.
New Fortress chairman and chief executive Wes Edens said the company has substantially completed its FSRU-based terminals at Barcarena and Santa Caterina in Brazil which would be ready for start-up in the first quarter of 2023. Previously the company has flagged these two facilities as being ready in the second quarter of 2022.
Edens said “significant progress” has been made on the Shannon LNG terminal for Ireland.
The company is also working on an LNG terminal for Richards Bay in South Africa.
Edens highlighted the lease of one of the company’s FSRUs — the 170,000-cbm Golar Igloo (built 2014) — to Gasunie in The Netherlands.
“We believe now that Europe is a bright part of our future and as we generate FLNG volumes .. we think the European customers are going to be a big part of what we see,” he said.
New Fortress, which also unveiled its plan to build a green hydrogen production facility at Beaumont in Texas today, logged a net loss of $178.4m in the three months to 30 June, compared to a loss of $1.7m in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue shot up to $584.9m a jump from the $223.8m reported in the second quarter of 2021.
The company detailed that the total operating margin from its ships segment was $89.7m against $76m for the corresponding quarter last year.
