LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - Norway's Hoegh LNG HLNGH.OL , a shipping company focused on floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, said on Friday Australia's AGL Energy AGL.AX had chosen its vessel Hoegh Esperanza for its LNG import project.
The Hoegh Esperanza, built last year, is under a three-year charter with China's CNOOC, which has been using it as both a floating receiving and storage unit (FSRU) in Tianjin and conventional LNG carrier, depending on needs.
Chinese LNG imports have soared in the past 18 months and the chartering of an FSRU - which is much quicker and cheaper to install as an importing terminal - has helped it smooth the landing of so much supply.
The AGL import project, based in Point Crib, Victoria, is now expected to start up in the first half of 2022. is the second project for which Hoegh is slated to provide an FSRU. It said last August the Australian Industrial Energy-led import project in Port Kembla, New South Wales, had also chosen one of its vessels.
Australia, the largest exporter of LNG in the world by capacity thanks to export terminals in the northwest, has had to consider building LNG import infrastructure in the southeast due to a gas shortage there. FSRUs are in use as import terminals in as far-flung countries as Indonesia, Turkey, Columbia and Lithuania. Others have been chartered to LNG traders such as Spanish utility Naturgy NTGY.MC and trading house Gunvor.