Malaysia’s MISC buys and then charters LNG duo to Eni

Malaysia’s LNG shipping company MISC said Tuesday it chartered two liquefied natural gas carriers to LNG Shipping, a unit of Italy’s state-controlled energy giant Eni.

MISC chartered the 1997-built LNG Portovenere and the 1998-built LNG Lerici. Both of the vessels have a capacity of 65,000 cubic metres.

The contracts follow a memorandum of agreement between LNG Shipping and MISC, which resulted in Malaysian company acquiring ownership of the vessels from Eni’s LNG shipping unit, according to a MISC statement.

Pursuant to the new deals, the vessels will be chartered for a period of five years with an estimated combined contract value of $133 million.

The charter for LNG Portovenere is expected to commence in December 2018 whereas the charter for LNG Lerici is expected to start by January 2019, MISC said.

To remind, ENI said last year it was weighing options for its LNG shipping business following several media reports claiming that the company is quitting the business and aims to sell its two last carriers.

The Italian company scrapped in 2012 two of its old 40,000-cbm carriers, namely the LNG Palmaria and LNG Elba, built in 1969 and 1970.

LNG World News Staff