Exmar Offloads LNG Carrier

Belgium’s owner and operator of gas carriers Exmar has sold the 2003-built LNG carrier Excel. 

The 138,107 cbm Excel was already delivered to its new owners on October 6, 2017, the company said. However, the identity of the buyer has not been revealed.

The net cash proceeds realized by Exmar for its 50% share in the joint venture ownership of the LNG carrier will be approximately USD 23 million. Japanese MOL owns the remaining 50% in the joint venture.

Based on the valuation data from VesselsValue, the ship is worth around USD 75.8 million.

Prior to the sale, Exmar had four LNG carriers in its fleet, including Excalibur which is also owned in the form of a joint venture, while LNG Portovenere and LNG Lerici are managed vessels.

Excel has been employed uninterruptedly from December 2016 to July 2017 for Indonesian account.

The company said in July that it was exploring several employment alternatives for the vessel. Nevertheless, it seems that these efforts have not been that successful.

On the other hand, Excalibur has been chartered out on a longterm contract to Excelerate Energy until March 2022.

For the first half of 2017, Exmar said that its LNG business suffered a loss of USD -20.4 million in its operating results compared to USD 24.7 million for the first half of 2016.

The operating result was negatively impacted by a non-cash impairment of USD 22.5 million on the Excel as well as costs related to the late delivery of the CFLNG.