Sinotrans to Build Five Arctic LNG Carriers
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Sinotrans Shipping, one of China’s largest shipping companies, is in negotiations to take part in a joint venture to commission the building of five Arctic LNG carriers, says the company's stock market announcement.
The company said in a statement that it is in talks with “certain parties in relation to participation in a possible joint venture to commission the building of five Arctic LNG carriers to engage in the LNG Arctic shipping business.”
Sinotrans Shipping said it expects to take 25.5 percent of the shares in the joint venture without revealing any further information.
Meanwhile, a report in Reuters said that China Merchants Energy Shipping, Sinotrans Shipping and Greek shipping firm Dynagas are in talks to form a joint venture to build five vessels to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Arctic.
According to the plan, the five vessels will be jointly invested by Dynagas (49%), CLNG (25.5%) and Sinotrans Shipping (25.5%). Total price of the vessels is about $158.7m.
Sinotrans however cautioned that the "parties are still at the stage of negotiations and the company has not entered into any legally binding agreement in respect of such Proposed JV Arrangement".
There is speculation that the vessels will be for the Yamal LNG project slated to start production in 2017 while Bloomberg reported that the other partners in the project are China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES), China LNG Shipping and Dynagas.
The LNG vessels in question will be probably used to transport the chilled gas from Novatek-operated Yamal LNG project in the Arctic scheduled to start production in 2017.