Statoil to Charter LNG-Fueled Shuttle Tankers

Statoil on June 22 awarded a long-term contract to AET, subsidiary of Malaysian state shipowner MISC, to operate two offshore loading shuttle tankers (OLSTs) on long-term charter. These new vessels will be in addition to the two such AET ships currently on charter to Statoil.

The two new 125,000 deadweight-ton tankers will be built by Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea for delivery in 2019 and contracted to Statoil for operations delivering cargoes from oilfields offshore both Norway and the UK. They will be built with LNG dual-fuel for main and auxiliary engines, with an option to be fitted with a volatile organic compound recovery system.

Once in operation from 2019, Statoil says they are expected to be the world’s first LNG-fuelled tankers of their type and most energy efficient.

With 26 LNG tankers, MISC also owns one of the world’s largest LNG carrier fleets and has three more being built for delivery between now and 2018.

Mark Smedley