Nakilat to charter new LNG carriers to Qatar Petroleum
A week after it placed orders for eight liquefied natural gas tankers, Qatar Gas Transporting Co (Nakilat) yesterday said it will charter those vessels to Qatar Petroleum for 25 years.
Nakilat had placed orders for four ‘QFlex’ and four ‘QMax’ tankers, valued at over QR2bn, with Samsung Heavy Indus-tries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engg Company, for shipping the produce from QatarGas 4 whose major market is the US market.
“These vessels, once delivered from the shipyards between October 2009 and February 2010, will be dedicated to the carriage of LNG for the QatarGas 4 project,” Nakilat MD Muhamad A Ghannam said in a communiqué posted on the Doha Securities Market website.
The Qatargas 4, the 70:30 joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and Shell, is a single-train project at Ras Laffan with a yearly production capacity of about 7.8mn tonnes and the expected start-up date in 2010.
Ghannam said the charter with QP was aimed at locking in secure long-term contracts for the Nakilat fleet, ensuring significant stable cash flow to not only operations but also to the shareholders.
“Moving forward, we will continue to strive to identify additional high-yield investment opportunities so as to maximise returns to shareholders,” he added.
With the latest order, Nakilat will have 25 wholly-owned vessels, which translates as an investment of about $7.5bn.
In addition to the wholly-owned ships, the company has an ownership stake (43% on average) in 29 other LNG vessels, all of which backed by 25-year time charters.
The company had in December said its subsidiary Nakilat Inc mopped up $4.3bn (about QR16bn) from debt markets primarily to build 16 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) vessels, while it intends to raise another $3.3bn in the second round.
Nakilat, whose 50% shares are traded on the DSM, yesterday gained over 1% to close at QR15.7 in an otherwise choppy market. Its volume was 1.35mn shares.
Nakilat had placed orders for four ‘QFlex’ and four ‘QMax’ tankers, valued at over QR2bn, with Samsung Heavy Indus-tries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engg Company, for shipping the produce from QatarGas 4 whose major market is the US market.
“These vessels, once delivered from the shipyards between October 2009 and February 2010, will be dedicated to the carriage of LNG for the QatarGas 4 project,” Nakilat MD Muhamad A Ghannam said in a communiqué posted on the Doha Securities Market website.
The Qatargas 4, the 70:30 joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and Shell, is a single-train project at Ras Laffan with a yearly production capacity of about 7.8mn tonnes and the expected start-up date in 2010.
Ghannam said the charter with QP was aimed at locking in secure long-term contracts for the Nakilat fleet, ensuring significant stable cash flow to not only operations but also to the shareholders.
“Moving forward, we will continue to strive to identify additional high-yield investment opportunities so as to maximise returns to shareholders,” he added.
With the latest order, Nakilat will have 25 wholly-owned vessels, which translates as an investment of about $7.5bn.
In addition to the wholly-owned ships, the company has an ownership stake (43% on average) in 29 other LNG vessels, all of which backed by 25-year time charters.
The company had in December said its subsidiary Nakilat Inc mopped up $4.3bn (about QR16bn) from debt markets primarily to build 16 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) vessels, while it intends to raise another $3.3bn in the second round.
Nakilat, whose 50% shares are traded on the DSM, yesterday gained over 1% to close at QR15.7 in an otherwise choppy market. Its volume was 1.35mn shares.