Ship Ahoy
February 17th, 2009
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Posted by ChrisG at 2:43 pm
For regular visitors who are interested in the current whereabouts of the Tembek, the first tanker to transport LNG to the new South Hook terminal at Milford Haven, here’s a handy little embed from the indispensible marinetraffic.com (might not work on IE7, but why would you want it to?):
ETAs for the vessel have of course varied widely, just like projected completion dates for the terminals and South Wales gas pipeline. We heard 9 February at one point, 12 February another time. It’ll probably take around 9-10 days to reach Milford in good weather, so even if it reaches full steam ahead today, it won’t be here before March.
That is of course if Milford is, indeed, going to be the destination.
The Tembek has been anchored off Malta since at least the end of January – is it waiting for a signal from Exxon Mobil, triggered by changes in the spot price gas market, which will see it heading off to Italy, the Netherlands, the USA, Japan or even Korea in response to the waving of metaphorical handfuls of euros, dollars or yen?
As the “Tembek” is new and does not use or waste any gas, she can presumably stay at sea for ever and wait for LNG prices to go up again.
However, news is, there is a glut of LNG at the moment, with various buyers trying to wriggle out of contracts due to the downturn in producing electricity from LNG.
BG has always preferred the spot market – now they may well come unstuck.
Perry