QatarEnergy has selected the joint venture of Japan’s Mitsui O.S.K Lines Ltd. (MOL) and China’s COSCO Shipping LNG Investment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (CSLNG) to own and operate 6 QC-Max size LNG vessels.
The 6 vessels will be built in China by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). These vessels are the last batch of the 128 LNG vessels in QatarEnergy’s historic ship building program, made up of 104 conventional and 24 QC-Max size ultra-modern vessels.
The long-term Time Charter Party (TCP) agreements were awarded to the shipowners during a special ceremony held at QatarEnergy’s headquarters in Doha under the patronage of His Excellency Mr. Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy.
The MOL-CSLNG joint venture has already entered long-term TCP agreements with QatarEnergy for 7 conventional LNG vessels, executed in 2022, giving the joint venture a total of 13 long-term TCPs under QatarEnergy’s LNG fleet expansion program.
In 2022, the joint venture of CSLNG and MOL has signed a long-term charter agreement with QatarEnergy for seven 174,000 cubic meter LNG carriers. Including the latest agreement, the joint venture has a total of 13 agreements in QatarEnergy’s LNG fleet expansion plan.
On December 9, COSCO SHIPPING Energy issued a board meeting resolution announcement, approving the proposal for CSLNG and MOL to jointly invest in QatarEnergy’s Phase II six 271,000 cubic meter LNG carriers.
The announcement disclosed that COSCO SHIPPING Energy Transportation’s board of directors agreed that its wholly-owned subsidiary CSLNG would acquire 50% of the shares of MOL’s six single-ship companies through its wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary Yuanhai LNG Investment Co., Ltd., and participate in the investment and construction of six 271,000 cubic meter LNG carriers. The total investment is about RMB 14.95 billion.
With the signing of the charter agreement for the last six new vesselss, the shipowners of the 24 world’s largest LNG carriers built by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding have now all been confirmed.