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Nakilat signs another mega shipping deal & has been awarded eight more 25-year time charters for large LNG carriers
Qatar, February 13, 2007
This latest accomplishment increases the Nakilat fleet to 25 wholly-owned large LNG carriers, 24 of which are backed by long-term time charters with the last one expected to secure time-charter backing soon. In addition to the wholly-owned ships, Nakilat has an ownership stake (43% on average) in 29 other LNG vessels, all of which are backed by 25-year time charters. According to Muhammad Ghannam, Nakilats Managing Director, these 8 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. The Qatargas 4 single-train project at Ras Laffan will have a production of approximately 7.8 million tons/year with an expected start-up date in 2010. Says Ghannam: This is another target in our goal of locking in secure long-term employment contracts for our fleet, which ensures significant stable cash flow to our operations and ultimately to our shareholders. Earlier, Nakilat entered into similar long-term agreements with Qatargas II for 6 “Q-Max” vessels and Qatargas 3 for 7 “Q-Flex” and 3 “Q-Max” vessels. Moving forward, we’ll continue to strive to identify additional high-yield investment opportunities to maximize returns to our shareholders.
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its growing fleet of state-of-the-art large LNG carriers. This agreement covers
the 4 “Q-Flex” and 4 “Q-Max” LNG vessels ordered by Nakilat from Korean
shipyards Daewoo and Samsung just over a week ago.
