South Korean firm to build four ships for NLNG

South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries said on Thursday it had won a 1 trillion Korean won ($895 million) order to build four Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) container ships for Nigeria’s Bonny Gas Transport, a shipping unit of Nigeria LNG (NLNG).

The South Korean shipbuilder said in a regulatory filing that the building contract will last until June 2016, reports Reuters.

Under the deal with the shipping unit of Nigeria LNG, Samsung will begin delivering the four LNG tankers to the country in 2015, Samsung said in a statement.

Babs Jolayemi Omotowa, managing director, NLNG, recently disclosed that export of LNG to the United States and other importers was no more profitable, following the sharp drop in gas prices in the US as a result of a gas glut in the once net importer of the nation’s crude oil.

NLNG is a joint venture of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), its biggest shareholder, and other firms including Shell of the Netherlands and French energy giant Total.

It was established more than 20 years ago to harness Nigeria’s natural gas resources, which before then were largely either being left in the ground or flared off as by-products of oil production to produce liquefied natural gas and natural gas liquids for export.

The company, which has a capacity to produce 22 million tons of liquefied gas a year, has long-term supply contracts with buyers in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and France and also sells on the spot market. It obtains its gas supply from the upstream oil companies and liquefies it for export.

Samsung, one of the world’s largest shipyards, has won orders worth $2.1 billion so far this year including the latest deal, after setting an annual target of $13 billion for the entire 2013. 

FEMI ASU