Endesa and Flex LNG shipping company have reached a charter agreement for the Flex Ranger methane carrier for one year with the possibility of extending it to another. The vessel will be used for the transport of liquefied natural gas from June 2020. This is the third methane carrier that the Spanish company will have chartered. With this fleet, Endesa will transport the two billion annual cubic meters purchased in 2014 within the Cheniere Energy project, from the port of Corpus Christi (Texas, USA).
The vessel was built in 2018 and has 293m LOA , 45m beam and a capacity of 174,000 cubic meters of LNG in its four cryogenic tanks. It will transport gas for consumption equivalent to the demand of one day in Spain.
The Flex Ranger is one of the 13 latest generation ships, six are operational and seven are under construction, by the Norwegian shipping company.
The ship also has two-stroke dual engines and a state-of-the-art containment system that allows to reduce consumption and choose the fuel, which can be 100% natural gas or low sulphur fuel oil. It also has systems to reduce NOx emissions.
So far Endesa has agreements with the Knutsen shipping company (seven-year charter agreement, with two seven-year and six-year extension periods for the Adriano Knutsen ship) and the GasLog shipping company, for the transport of LNG with the Gaslow Warsaw from 2021 (eight-year charter agreement, with two optional periods of six years each).
In Spain there is a need to buy gas in other markets as it does not have its own reserves. Gas pipelines are not enough to meet the demand and are completed with supply through methane carriers. As a result of the decarbonization process of the economy, the demand for natural gas for electricity production is expected to increase, making the electrical system more robust to allow the progressive insertion of renewable energies, and advancing towards a zero-emission scenario in 2050.
ENDESA HIRES THE THIRD METHANE CARRIER
