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MYSTERY OF SUDDEN DIVERSION OF LNG TANKERS BOUND FOR SHELL’S TROUBLED PRELUDE FLNG 

MYSTERY OVER SUDDEN DIVERSION OF LNG TANKERS BOUND FOR SHELL’S TROUBLED PRELUDE FLNG 

Extracts from Reuters article – Two LNG tankers bound for Australia’s Prelude facility divert..

It is not clear why the ships changed their destinations from Prelude…: Shell declined to comment on the matter.

EXTRACTS FROM RELATED SPECULATION BY RETIRED SENIOR SHELL EXPERTS

Your the wiz kid on tanker movements

….seems to me the only logical reason for such diversion of for example the Gaslog Glasgow was there was not a sufficiency of LNG to load on or around the 15 January (the first load was offtaken on 8 January) when to meet the 3.6m tonnes design output it would have been required to load around this time and I think you calculated that to meet the 3.6 mt/a  given an average LNG carrier capacity an offload would be expected every circa 7 –  10 days,…

Assume there was an expectation at the time that an offload would and could take place hence the tanker hung around for three days, a very expensive delay when no LNG was then forthcoming.

What do you think?

REPLY

Yes, there are still very disturbing signs surrounding the ongoing Operational performance of Prelude.

Remembering its a-few years since I was involved directly with shipping and Tankers specifically.   However, the same costs and charges are similar but maybe under different headings.

A ship, either time charter or spot single spot hire, will have a daily charter rate.  This rate is paid whilst the ship is in service and available.  In these agreements, there will be specific clauses referring to a term called Demurrage.

Demurrage is a charge payable to the owner of a chartered ship on failure to load or discharge the ship within the time agreed, or in shipping speak:-

A ship will be nominated to lift a cargo in or on a specific date range, this date range will be timed to coincide with the specific cargo being ready to load.  On arrival, the ship will inform the terminal that it ready to start loading the nominated cargo. This will include all the time taken to moor/load/depart the port limits.

if there are any delays following the arrival into port limits and the terminal stating the nominated cargo ready. then the shipowner is entitled to paid an agreed daily rate until the terminal instructs the ship that the cargo is ready to load.  There are sometimes clauses which allow the cargo nomination to be adjusted which will have been agreed to by the recipient of that cargo volume.  In the case of Draugen this was 80% during the time I was involved.

In the case of Gaslog Glasgow, I think the nominated cargo was not ready and would not be so for an unspecified time frame.  I understand Gaslog Glasgow is on a long term charter to Shell and Shell will have long term contracts to supply LNG to its customers.  The overall complexity of juggling supply and demand and all its facets is mind-boggling to say the least.  I think that the time frame for the nominated cargo to be ready was undetermined and the ship was reprogrammed to obtain a cargo of LNG elsewhere.  The Stavanger Eagle, a crude oil tanker which will be to lift a cargo on raw condensate, has been hanging around Prelude for a couple of weeks now waiting for its nominated cargo.

We can be reasonably sure Prelude is not anywhere near being out of the woods, the root cause of these shortcomings is still elusive that’s for sure.

REPLY

Many thanks… What appears to be conclusive is that production is far as yet from big numbers and straight lines.

CHAT ENDS

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