All about Golar Lng, which will sell the regasification vessel to Snam
What Golar Lng, the LNG infrastructure company that will sell a regasification vessel to Snam, is doing. Here are executives and shareholders (including the BlackRock fund)
Snam, the energy company that manages the Italian pipeline network, has been awarded a regasification vessel from Golar LNG, a Bermudan liquefied gas infrastructure company. The ship is known in technical jargon as a "floating storage and regasification unit" or FRSU, according to the English acronym: it is a plant that allows natural gas made liquid to be restored to its gaseous state (we are talking about liquefied natural gas, or LNG) before being loaded onto the tankers and transported; regasification is necessary for the introduction of gas into the network and its use for heating or electricity.
THE CONTEXT, IN BRIEF
The European Union wants to increase LNG imports to reduce dependence on pipeline flows from Russia, its main supplier of hydrocarbons. As a result, Italy is working to enhance its regasification capacity: the Minister of Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, said that the country could acquire an additional capacity of 24 billion cubic meters in the next twelve to eighteen months. The government thus asked Snam to acquire FRSUs. It will not be easy, as they explained on Startmag , because there is an international competition for the grabbing of these ships, the availability of which is also limited.
SNAM AND SARDINIA
The Golar LNG ship purchased by Snam at a price of 269 million euros, the Golar Arctic, is a LNG carrier that will be converted into a regasifier: delivery will not take place before two years. The unit will have a maximum storage capacity of 140,000 cubic meters and will be installed in Portovesme, in the municipality of Portoscuso, in south-eastern Sardinia. The town is close to Enel's thermoelectric plant in Portoscuso, which can be fueled by gas.
Sardinia is not yet “methanized”, that is, it has an internal network of pipelines for methane and connected to the rest of Italy. The Snam project – active since 2024 – provides for a liquefied gas transport system from the island to the La Spezia and Livorno regasifiers, and vice versa; in addition to the Portovesme regasification ship, the island will also install a second one in Porto Torres, in the north.
ALL ABOUT GOLAR LNG
Golar LNG Limited is a liquefied gas infrastructure company with a particular focus on liquefaction, transportation, storage and regasification units. It is based in Bermuda, a British overseas territory that is geographically closer to the United States than to the United Kingdom. It owns and rents FSRUs and LNG carriers, also dealing with the development of gas-to-power projects (for the production of electricity from natural gas) and small-scale distribution operations. Through its wholly owned subsidiary Golar Management, it provides commercial and technical assistance services.
The president of Golar LNG is Tor Olav Trøim from Norway with a background in energy and shipping companies. The managing director, also Norwegian, is Karl Fredrik Staubo : he held executive roles in the investment bank Clarksons Platou Securities.
Golar LNG is listed on Nasdaq, the US electronic stock exchange. Its main shareholders as of January 31st are Orbis Investment Management and Cobas Asset Management, two investment management companies – the first is based in Bermuda, the second in Spain – with stakes of 10.8 and 10.2 per cent respectively. . Rubric Asset Management, a British investment management company, follows with 6.4 per cent. President Trøim has a 4.9 percent stake.
THE ROLE OF BLACKROCK (AGAIN)
Among the shareholders of Golar LNG there is also the BlackRock fund, which owns 4.1 per cent of the shares. BlackRock is the largest shareholder of many of the major US liquefied gas exporting companies, such as Cheniere Energy, Tellurian and Sempra.
– Read also: LNG, here are the US companies that will sell it (perhaps) to Europe. The role of Blackrock
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/golar-lng-snam/ on Thu, 19 May 2022 08:22:10 +0000.