Endesa Charters Gaslog LNG Tanker
Spain-based energy group Endesa has agreed to charter GasLog's newbuild but uncommitted vessel, the GasLog Warsaw. GasLog is scheduled to take delivery of the 180,000 m³ tanker from South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries in July 2019. The eight-year fixed-term charter to Endesa will start in May 2021, GasLog said March 21.
Gaslog CEO Paul Wogan said he was delighed to charter the vessel to "a leading European utility and very high-quality counterparty. This charter expands our customer base and we look forward to further developing our relationship with Endesa."
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The company expects the spot market to be strong for the vessel's first few years, especially in the winter. The combination of the vessel’s size, highly efficient LP-2S propulsion and industry-leading low boil-off rate of 0.07% all combine to produce an extremely competitive transportation cost that should make it particularly attractive to potential charterers, said Gaslog.
Combined with the recent delivery of the GasLog Gladstone 2, now on a 10-year charter to a Anglo-Dutch Shell, it has been a very successful start to the year for GasLog, it said. As a result, it has even more confidence in its ability to more than double its consolidated run-rate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation by 2022.
Endesa CEO Jose Bogas said that "contracting the GasLog Warsaw on long-term charter represents another important step in delivering a flexible and competitive LNG carrier solution to service our contracted LNG volumes over the next 20 years. We are pleased to partner with GasLog and look forward to developing this relationship further.”
The GasLog Warsaw is scheduled to deliver to Endesa in May 2021 for a fixed eight-year term, with two optional periods of six years each. The rate of hire for the charter is in line with mid-cycle rates. GasLog expects that the combination of the vessel’s near-term earnings in the spot market and the earnings from the Endesa time charter will deliver attractive returns for its shareholders.
The two-year wait means Endesa will use another tanker to transport its offtake from Cheniere's US Corpus Christi LNG project, due to start up this summer.