Bahri, Saudi Aramco’s shipping subsidiary, is looking to charter as many as 12 LNG tankers from 2025 according to Reuters. Bahri does not currently possess any LNG tankers, hardly a surprise as the kingdom neither exports nor imports any LNG. However, the state giant’s trading arm ATC has this year dabbled in trading LNG as part of its substantial expansion plans. It traded its first LNG cargo in April, selling it into India (MEES, 7 June). Saudi energy developer Acwa Power signed an MoU in October to construct a 3.6GW LNG-based power plant in Bangladesh, with Aramco also involved – seemingly as a supplier (MEES, 25 October).
While all this points towards the LNG tankers being used to support ATC’s trading activities, 2025 is sufficiently distant that they could be used to supply Saudi Arabia with gas. The kingdom is working to overcome its gas shortfall, but prior to the embargo was in talks with Qatar over importing from the emirate (MEES, 8 December 2017). (CONTINUED - 160 WORDS)