Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia in LNG ship pact

The state oil companies of Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to charter each other's liquefied natural gas tankers because of excess shipping capacity, Bloomberg reported Monday.

PT Pertamina, Indonesia's state oil company, plans to lease out some of its 13 chartered tankers to Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd. or Brunei LNG Sdn., Ari Soemarno, director of trading and marketing at Pertamina, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

Pertamina, the marketing agent for Indonesia's LNG, has excess shipping facilities because it chartered tankers in advance and Indonesia failed to supply some customers with LNG.

The country's LNG exports declined after a drop in production at its two plants.

"We cannot meet our contracted quantities this year, so we can lease our ships to either one of the two countries," Soemarno said at the Asia Oil and Gas Conference. "We can save some costs from this arrangement."

Some LNG tankers may have to lie idle in the next few years because there isn't enough demand for the ships, Helmut Sohmen, chairman of Bermuda-based Bergesen World-Wide Ltd., said in an interview in April.

Shipping and energy companies have invested more than $15 billion in the 108 liquefied natural gas tankers under construction, equivalent to more than 70 percent of the current fleet. London-based Golar LNG Ltd., controlled by John Fredriksen, is among owners that ordered about 25 LNG tankers without any employment lined up.

Owners ordered ships as consumption of LNG grows to meet energy demand in the U.S. and China. Delays to LNG projects in Egypt and Indonesia may lead to shipping capacity growing faster than gas supply. Unlike the oil tanker market, LNG owners don't have a significant single-voyage, or spot, market to turn to.(*)