Regional LNG: Tepco signs 15-year charter deal to transport LNG from Darwin
Wednesday, December 22 2004 - 03:42 PM WIB
Under the contract starting April 2008, LNG Marine Transport, a unit of Tepco, will charter an LNG carrier from Nippon Yusen to deliver 1 million metric tons a year of LNG from Darwin, Australia, to Tepco's gas-fired thermal power plants in the Tokyo area, a Tepco spokesman said.
"Compared with construction and maintenance costs for its own LNG ship, we've got such an attractive time-charter rate from Nippon Yusen," the spokesman said, without elaborating contract details.
The carrier Tepco will charter is under construction, and has four tanks on board with a combined capacity to hold 67,000 tons of LNG.
Tepco, the largest power utility in Japan, has a 17-year contract starting from 2006 to purchase 2 million tons/year of LNG from Australia's Darwin LNG. The contract is on a free-on-board basis, under which Tepco will deliver LNG cargoes with its own or chartered-LNG vessels.
In the Darwin LNG project, ConocoPhillips (COP) holds 56.72% and is taking the initiative in developing natural gas, condensate and liquefied petroleum gas in the Bayu-Undan offshore field 500 kilometers from Darwin.
The Bayu-Undan oil and gas field in the East Timor Sea is believed to have reserves of about 400 million barrels of condensate and LPG, and 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (*)