The Hottest Commodity Asset Right Now Is a 35,000-Ton Steel Ship
- Floating LNG terminals cheaper to build, faster to put online
- Price slump, glut boosts fuel's popularity in Middle East
A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker berthed at Tokyo Electric Power Co. power plant in Japan.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
At a time when commodity producers are writing down billions in asset values and canceling projects around the world, one niche area of the gas market is booming.
Hybrid ships, called Floating Storage and Regasification Units, or FSRUs, offer emerging nations from Egypt to Pakistan a cheaper, quicker way to attack power shortages by importing liquefied natural gas. They cost about $300 million to build, or half as much as an onshore import terminal, and are up and running as much as six times faster, sometimes within as little as a year, according to owners Hoegh LNG Holding Ltd. and Excelerate Energy LLC.