MOL and Cosco to Co-own 4 Yamal Tankers

Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) November 2 said that China COSCO Shipping Corporation (Cosco) will take a 50% equity stake in its wholly owned subsidiary that will own four LNG carriers serving the Russia Yamal LNG project.

The ownership will henceforth be split 50%-50% between MOL and Cosco.

MOL announced June 29 2017 it signed long-term charter contracts for the four LNG carriers through its wholly owned company. The carriers, each able to carry 174,000m³ of LNG, will be delivered in 2019 and 2020.

MOL and Cosco are already involved in three earlier joint ventures: one for ExxonMobil (a total of four vessels were delivered from 2015 through 2016), another for Sinopec (six vessels delivered from 2016 through 2018, one of which -- delivered June 2017 -- is shown in the banner photo to this article), and the ice-class LNG carriers for the Yamal LNG project (three vessels will be delivered from 2018 through 2019).

The total number of vessels co-owned by MOL and China COSCO Shipping will increase to 17 in 2020 when all vessels including those in latest project are in service.

Shardul Sharma