Bambang's Osprey eyes Asian gas markets

Bambang's Osprey eyes Asian gas markets

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Osprey Maritime Ltd, which is controlled by President Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo and his Indonesian associates, is targetting the emerging Asian gas markets.

"We see enormous growth in Asia for energy. It is a strategic move for us to position ourselves as an energy transportation firm," Osprey's chairman and chief executive officer Tim Cottew said yesterday.

Cottew was commenting on Osprey's acquisition of the Monaco- based oil and gas carrier Gotaas-Larsen.

"We are focusing on the new markets," Cottew said, citing South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and India as examples.

Asia Pacific accounts for about 77 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand, estimated at around 75 million tons in 1996, according to Alan Tronner, managing director of Kuala Lumpur-based AsiaPacific Energy Consulting.

"And most of the incremental demand is fueled by South Korea," Tronner said.

Osprey's plan to buy Gotaas-Larsen for US$750 million, announced on Tuesday, would make it a leading operator of LNG transportation in Asia where demand is growing fastest.

The acquisition would include a total of nine vessels -- four LNG vessels, four very large crude carriers (VLCC) and the remaining half share in an LNG carrier.

Cottew said Japan, Asia's largest gas consumer, has become a mature market and one where transportation is dominated by the Japanese. Osprey would not be targetting this market.

Osprey, which saw 47.4 percent of its $85.7 million revenue generated from outside of Singapore in 1996, would see this increase in 1997 with its latest acquisition, he said.

Cottew was optimistic about the growth of the LNG chartering market, which is currently very tight.

He was confident Osprey would be able to commit quickly its one unemployed LNG carrier "in a fairly short space in time".

This was because Osprey intended to tender for a short-term South Korean contract to deliver LNG to Korea Gas Corp. The tender is expected within the next two to three months.

South Korea, which has been importing LNG from Indonesia since the late 1980s, saw contractual demand surge to over 10 million tons a year from about two million tons in 1996, Cottew said.

Indonesia's state-owned oil company Pertamina is the world's LNG exporter with an annual shipment of more than 24 million tons, mainly to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

Discussions for new short-term LNG vessel charter rates were expected to be 50-60 percent above last year, given the tight supply, he said.