Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine has raised its stake in Gravifloat to 56% by purchasing a 44% holding for $38m, and intends to continue buying equity until it owns the floating LNG infrastructure specialist outright.
Gravifloat designs and holds patents for steel “re-deployable” modular LNG and LPG liquefaction and receiving terminals, which aim to be more cost-competitive than floating, storage and regasification units (FSRUs), floating LNG units and land terminals.
The Bergen-based company was founded in Norway in 2006 as a spin-off of marine engineering and naval architecture company LMG Marin.
Sembcorp said it will purchase the remaining stake in Gravifloat “at the same price”.
“Our increased stake in in Gravifloat underlines our confidence in Gravifloat designs to provide globally competitive solutions for our customers. It also reflects our strategy to broaden and deepen the Group’s range of proprietary designs and solutions to develop new state-of-the-art facilities for the fast evolving LNG and LPG industries,” Wong Weng Sun, president and CEO of Sembcorp Marine, said in a statement.
The Singapore-listed company first bought a 12% stake in Gravifloat in June 2014.
