Poland’s dominant gas firm and LNG importer PGNiG said it would charter two newbuild vessels from Norway’s Knutsen for its contracted supplies from the US.
The two firms already signed a charter deal for two carriers in November last year. This puts the total to four newbuild LNG ships.
PGNiG Supply & Trading, a unit of the Polish firm, signed the new chartering deal with Knutsen for two 174,000-cbm vessels for a period of 10 years, with an option for extension.
The vessels will enter service in the first half of 2024, according to PGNiG.
PGNiG did not reveal the name of the shipyard but Knusten has ordered the previous two LNG vessels at South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries.
Both contracts stipulate that the shipowner would be responsible for the delivery, manning and maintenance of the LNG vessels. PGNiG Supply & Trading will control their commercial operations.
PGNiG said it plans to use these four LNG carriers primarily to transport contracted volumes from US liquefaction facilities.
This new charter deal follows a new supply deal PGNiG revealed this week with US liquefaction plant developer Venture Global LNG.
As a result, PGNiG’s contracted volume from Venture Global LNG will increase to 5.5 million mt or 7.4 bcm of gas per year.
“We are consistently developing PGNiG’s position on the international LNG market,” Paweł Majewski, PGNiG’s CEO, said.
“Chartering of the tankers is an important step to implement our plans in this area. It is an optimal solution, ensuring certainty and at the same time flexibility of logistic operations, which are an important element of building competitive advantage”, he said.