Privately-owned Swedish shipping firm Stena Bulk AB said Tuesday it has purchased three LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) tankers from Taiwan-based shipping company TMT for a total of $700 million, Nasdaq reports.
MAIN FACTS:
-"We believe this to be a very good investment. LNG accounts for a significant part of the growth in the global energy supply and there is currently a shortage of LNG tankers. Consequently, we expect the two newly built vessels to directly command freight rates in excess of $100,000 per day," says Ulf G. Ryder, CEO of Stena Bulk.
-"In addition to the shipyards' full order books, there is a need for 60-70 new LNG tankers to satisfy the rising demand up until 2014."
-"LNG tankers are more capital intensive than normal tankers and are about three times as expensive. It takes nearly four times longer to build a LNG tanker than a normal tanker of the same size. Because of this and the more complicated operation of an LNG tanker, there are few players active in the segment".
-"Having in this situation the liquidity and operational know-how to be able to purchase these three vessels so quickly, two of which are so new that they have not even been delivered from the shipyard yet, gives our LNG investment an excellent starting point."
-Stena Bulk expects the two newly built vessels to be delivered from the shipyard already in June. They will then be fitted out with supplementary equipment and manned with new crews after which they will be ready to load their first cargo of liquid natural gas at the end of July.
MAIN FACTS:
-"We believe this to be a very good investment. LNG accounts for a significant part of the growth in the global energy supply and there is currently a shortage of LNG tankers. Consequently, we expect the two newly built vessels to directly command freight rates in excess of $100,000 per day," says Ulf G. Ryder, CEO of Stena Bulk.
-"In addition to the shipyards' full order books, there is a need for 60-70 new LNG tankers to satisfy the rising demand up until 2014."
-"LNG tankers are more capital intensive than normal tankers and are about three times as expensive. It takes nearly four times longer to build a LNG tanker than a normal tanker of the same size. Because of this and the more complicated operation of an LNG tanker, there are few players active in the segment".
-"Having in this situation the liquidity and operational know-how to be able to purchase these three vessels so quickly, two of which are so new that they have not even been delivered from the shipyard yet, gives our LNG investment an excellent starting point."
-Stena Bulk expects the two newly built vessels to be delivered from the shipyard already in June. They will then be fitted out with supplementary equipment and manned with new crews after which they will be ready to load their first cargo of liquid natural gas at the end of July.