Dynagas LNG Partners LP., an owner and operator of LNG carriers, today announced the following: The Partnership has entered into a new three year charter agreement with Statoil ASA (“Statoil”) for the employment of the Arctic Aurora, its 2013-built, 155,000 cubic meter , tri-fuel diesel engine, ice class LNG carrier (the “Extended Charter”). The Arctic Aurora is currently, and has been since 2013, on charter to Statoil (the “Current Charter”). The Extended Charter is expected to commence in the third quarter of 2018 in direct continuation of the Current Charter (interrupted only by the vessel’s mandatory statutory class five-year special survey and dry-docking) and will have a firm period of about 3 years +/- 30 days. Statoil will have the option to extend the Extended Charter by two consecutive 12-month periods at escalated rates.
PetroChina International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (“PetroChina”) has exercised its right to extend the current charter term for the Clean Energy, the Partnership’s 2007-built, approximately 150,000 cubic meter LNG carrier, by a minimum period of approximately 4 months. The Clean Energy was delivered to PetroChina in October 2017 and is now expected to be redelivered to the Partnership under the charter, as extended, at the earliest, in May 2018 and at latest, in June 2018, prior to its delivery to Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore Pte Ltd in July 2018, when the vessel will commence a time charter with a term of approximately eight years.
The extension of these two charter periods increases the Partnership’s estimated contracted backlog to approximately $1.51 billion with average remaining contract duration of about 10.6 years.
Tony Lauritzen, Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership, commented: “We are pleased to report our extended charters with Statoil and PetroChina. Statoil is an important partner for Dynagas that further solidifies our operation of LNG carriers in subzero and ice bound areas. The charter with PetroChina strengthens an important cooperation that provides cleaner energy in a rapidly growing Chinese gas market. As previously communicated we have been executing on our strategy of securing term employment for part of our availability in 2018 on the back of an improving LNG shipping market.”