Dynagas Bags Charter Deals with Gazprom
Dynagas LNG Partners LP has entered into a new long term time charter agreement with Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore Pte Ltd. for the employment of the 2007 built 150,000 cubic meter steam turbine LNG carrier Clean Energy.
The Clean Energy is the Partnership's only non-ice classed LNG Carrier. The charter is expected to commence in July 2018 and will have a firm duration of about 7 years and 9 months.
The gross contracted revenue from this contract is expected to be approximately $133 million over this period.
Following the expiration of the existing time charter to Shell in the second quarter of 2017, Clean Energy will undergo its statutory class five-year special survey and dry-docking and the Partnership will seek to employ it under shorter term employment until the commencement of the new Gazprom time charter.
In connection with the employment of Clean Energy, the Partnership has also agreed with Gazprom Global LNG Limited commencing November 1st 2016 to reduce the charter income on both the 2013 built Yenisei River and the Lena River.
Following this amendment, the contracted revenues for the Yenisei River and Lena River as of November 1st, 2016 will be reduced by approximately USD 8.7 million for the Yenisei and USD 9.6 million for the Lena River over their remaining current charter terms which expire earliest in July and September 2018 respectively.
Tony Lauritzen, Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership, commented: "We are pleased to report these new charter arrangements which result in an improved charter profile for the Partnership and increases the Partnership's contracted backlog as of November 1st, 2016 to approximately USD 1.6 billion from USD 1.5 billion prior to the conclusion of these new charter arrangements."
He added: "We have previously communicated that we focus on securing long term employment for our vessels and in particular for the Clean Energy, which is the only vessel in our fleet without ice class notation. We believe that employing this particular vessel as a conventional LNG Carrier as opposed to converting into an FSRU is a low risk and economical solution that benefits our unitholders."
The current fleet of Dynagas LNG Partners consists of six LNG carriers, each of which has a carrying capacity of approximately 150,000 to 155,000 cbm.
