Venture Global LNG is buying nine ships to transport liquefied natural gas as it seeks to boost global sales of the super-chilled fuel, the U.S. LNG provider said on Sunday.
The nine vessels will also be LNG-powered and primarily fueled by Venture Global's liquefied natural gas, the company said.
The new fleet of LNG vessels is currently under construction in South Korea and will be delivered starting later this year. Six vessels will have a cargo capacity of 174,000 cubic meters and three a cargo capacity of 200,000 cubic meters.
"We are sending a strong signal to the global market of our long-term commitment to meeting the world's growing energy demand at a large scale, bolstering the security of our customers and allies by providing them with clean, affordable, and reliable U.S. LNG as efficiently as possible," said Venture Global CEO Mike Sabel.
The U.S. firm has already exported more than 200 cargoes of LNG from its Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant, but it has been entangled in a legal fight with some of the world's top energy firms, who have complained that the U.S. LNG seller had not been transparent about the status of its Louisiana facility.
BP, Shell, Repsol, Eni, and Edison became foundational buyers of Venture Global's LNG even before it started producing. They paid for the construction of the Calcasieu Pass facility and secured long-term supply from it in a more or less standard deal for the industry.
The plant started producing in early 2022-right on time for Europe, which was beginning to experience a shortage. But instead of honoring its contracts with the European buyers, Venture Global chose to sell more LNG on the spot market.
As for the delay in deliveries to the long-term customers, Venture Global explained it with force majeure because of technical problems with the power supply.
In December, BP asked FERC to force Venture Global to disclose the documentation around its force majeure-which Venture Global wants to keep confidential.
Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asked Venture Global LNG to justify why it keeps details of its Calcasieu Pass LNG facility confidential.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More