A contract to ship up to 3 million mt of LNG domestically in Indonesia has been awarded to a JV of Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines, Ltd. and Indonesian ocean shipping company PT Trada Maritime Tbk, Mitsui OSK Lines said in a statement.
The PT Trada Maritime Tbk-Mitsui O.S.K. Lines JV would ship LNG from Bontang and other Indonesian ports to PT Nusantara Regas' floating storage and regasification unit currently being built in Jakarta Bay.
The transport contract is to run from late-January 2012 through to the end of 2022, in line with the revised start-up of Nusantara Regas' FSRU.
In late November, a senior project official from Nusantara Regas announced that start-up of its 3 million mt/year FSRU in Jakarta Bay had been pushed back, with commissioning starting in January and the plant coming on stream in early April.
The new JV company structure is proposed to have a 51:49 structure between PT Trada Maritime Tbk, and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. PT Trada Maritime Tbk currently owns and operates the LNG carrier LNG Aquarius, a 126,000 cu m Moss-type vessel built in 1977.
Nusantara Regas is a 60:40 joint venture between Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina and state-owned gas transmission and distribution company Perusahaan Gas Negara.
Construction of the 1.5 million mt/year first stage of the FSRU began in May this year, with the planned 3 million mt/year total capacity Jakarta Bay FSRU scheduled to be completed in two stages.
The debate over domestic gas allocation in Indonesia has grown in the last few years following an increase in domestic gas demand even as foreign buyers were willing to pay more for supplies.
Nusantara Regas had signed an agreement with France's Total and Japan's Inpex to supply 1.5 million mt/year of LNG for 11 years from their jointly owned Mahakam block in East Kalimantan to the project.
It is still seeking to secure another 1.5 million mt/year and said earlier this month it was eyeing US Sempra's 1.5 million mt/year LNG allocation from Tangguh in eastern Papua.
Nusantara Regas signed a heads of agreement with state-owned power utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara over gas sales from the floating LNG terminal in 2010 under which PNL will buy gas from the project at $10/MMBtu.
