LNG carrier operator CoolCo, formed by Idan Ofer’s Eastern Pacific Shipping and Tor Olav Troim’s Golar LNG, has completed the previously announced purchase of four LNG carriers worth $660 million, reports LNG Prime.
Special purpose companies with contracted LNG carriers
CoolCo acquired four special purpose companies with contracted LNG carriers, namely Kool Orca, Kool Firn, Kool Boreas, and Kool Baltic, from Quantum Crude Tankers , an affiliate of EPS.
The firm said in a statement issued on Thursday it financed the purchase price with the $170 million primary element of a follow-on equity offering dated November 2, and assumed debt.
As previously reported by LNG Prime, CoolCo’s largest shareholder EPS bought these LNG carriers from Dutch ING Bank and paid about $700 million for them.
Russia’s Sovcomflot previously owned these vessels built between 2015 and 2021 and chartered by a unit of LNG giant Shell.
Besides these four LNG carriers, CoolCo has entered into an option agreement with an affiliate of EPS to acquire two shipbuilding contracts with South Korea’s Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries with deliveries in the first quarter of 2025.
“The options are exercisable before end of the second quarter of 2023 at an implied vessel valuation of $234 million each,” it said in the statement earlier this month.
With the eight TFDE LNG vessels it bought from Golar and these four carriers, CoolCo now has a fleet of twelve LNG carriers.
In addition to these owned LNG carriers, CoolCo manages a fleet of seventeen vessels, including LNG carriers and FSRUs.
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Source: LNG Prime
