Will Pride

Awilco LNG in Consolidation Talks with LNG Carrier Owners

Oslo-listed Awilco LNG is working with other ship owners on establishing a consolidated LNG shipping structure, the company confirmed addressing media reports on LNG shipping consolidation initiative.

Will Pride LNG Carrier; Image Courtesy: Flickr-Kees Torn under CC BY-SA 2.0 license

The identity of other companies involved in the talks remained undisclosed.

As informed, the consolidation drive targets economies of scale and commercial and financial synergies.

“No agreement has yet been reached and it is not possible to say whether an agreement will be reached. Awilco LNG will revert with further information to the market in due course,” the company said.

The prospects for the LNG market look promising due to healthy market fundamentals. The outlook for the next three years shows that a total of 91 mtpa of new LNG production capacity is expected to start up in 2018 to 2021.

Out of this, close to 50 mtpa of the new production is out of the US, which is expected to increase average sailing distances. On the demand side, shipbroker reports show that the current orderbook for LNG vessels above 100,000 cbm (excl. FSRU and FLNG) counts 93 vessels, of which 37 are potentially available for contract.

However, the LNG production scheduled to start up during the three-year period will most likely require more vessels than the current available tonnage and orderbook during periods of high ton-mile demand.

The Norwegian based pure play LNG transportation provider, owns two 156,000 cbm TFDE membrane LNG vessels; WilForce and WilPride.