Friday, December 7, 2007
UPDATE: RWE In Talks On Stake In LNG Co Excelerate Energy
7 December 2007
Dow Jones International News
FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--German utility RWE AG (RWE.XE) is in talks with Excelerate Energy LLC on acquiring a stake in the U.S. company, a RWE spokeswoman said Friday.
The spokeswoman didn't want to comment on the size of the possible stake or at which stage the negotiations are at.
Platts Commodity News Thursday, citing unnamed sources, reported that RWE is interested in taking a 50% stake in privately-owned, Texas-based Excelerate.
The two companies have cooperated for over a year. In Teesside, U.K, RWE markets liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which Excelerate transports in specially-designed LNG vessels that are capable of regasifying the LNG before delivering directly into the pipeline grid. This by-passes the need for traditional onshore LNG regasification terminals and storage tanks.
In addition, both companies have confirmed their interest in an LNG project in Wilhelmshaven, northern Germany.
In Wilhelmshaven, RWE is in a joint project with Excelerate and German crude oil terminal operator Nord-West Oelleitung GmbH on building an import facility for LNG that also won't require the construction of a regasification terminal.
The plans for Wilhelmshaven foresee a capacity to feed up to 600,000 cubic meters an hour of regasified LNG into the German gas grid. This would equate to up to around 5.3 billion cubic meters a year.
Excelerate owns and operates LNG transport vessels that are equipped with onboard regasification technology.
According to the company's Web site, Excelerate controls a fleet of four vessels, three of which have onboard regasification capabilities. Its total LNG transport capacity currently stands at 552,000 cubic meters.
Excelerate has five LNG vessels on order with a combined capacity of 754,500 cubic meters. These vessels, which it will co-own with Belgium-based shipping group Exmar NV (EXM.BT), will be delivered between March 2008 and June 2010, according to the Web site.
