Norwegian shipowner Hoegh LNG has secured LNG carrier charters for three of its floating storage and regasification units (FSRU).
All ships are already used as LNG carriers, and will continue to be for a further 12 months under the agreements.
Trading firm Trafigura exercised a 12-month extension in its charter on the 170,000m³ Hoegh Gannet, which was scheduled to end this quarter.
And Trafigura also signed a 12-month charter for the 144,300m³ Hoegh Gallant, whose term charter with Japan's Mitsui concludes at the end of March. The Hoegh Gallant has generally been deployed on inter-basin journeys in recent months, delivering cargoes from the US' 15mn t/yr Cameron LNG facility — where Mitsui holds all the capacity from one of the three liquefaction trains — to northeast Asia.
And Hoegh LNG extended the 170,000m³ Hoegh Galleon's charter with US operator Cheniere by 12 months, so the vessel will remain chartered as an LNG carrier until 2022, when it is to be installed at Australia's planned 2mn t/yr Port Kembla import project. The launch of the Port Kembla terminal has been delayed from the end of 2020, which had left the FSRU facing an idle spell.
Hoegh is still attempting to secure an extension to the charter on its 170,000m³ Hoegh Esperanza FSRU, which is used at China's Tianjin for the winter peak demand months and operated as a carrier through much of summer. The vessel's charter — recently transferred to new state-owned entity PipeChina — expires in June, and the unit is not expected to be installed at Australia's Crib Point import terminal until 2022.
Hoegh LNG signed a charter in November for its 170,000m³ Hoegh Giant FSRU. The vessel will be installed at India's Jaigarh at the end of March after the conclusion of a term charter with Spanish utility Naturgy.
Hoegh LNG said today that its fleet — with the exception of the Hoegh Esperanza — is fully committed until the end of 2021.
