President director Budi Haryono said at the company's annual press briefing on Dec. 30 that it would buy one floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) — a special ship for the conversion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) back into gas for distribution — worth around $50 million, two chemical tankers worth $10 million and four offshore support vessels worth $1.5 million each.

The publicly listed company is operating at least 84 vessels, of which around 40 are owned by its partners. Most of them are oil and gas tankers.

In 2019, the company bought one chemical tanker, fewer than the five vessels planned.

"The planned purchase in 2020 depends on the availability of the vessels in accordance with our preferred specifications and budget allocations,” Budi said.

The planned purchase, to be financed by the company's cash and bank loans, was part of its efforts to expand to energy distribution, he said.

Humpuss announced in 2018 that it planned to become an energy distributor.

Director Taufik Agustono said the company's expansion to gas distribution through an FSRU was in line with the government's policy to encourage more use of natural gas and less use of oil.

"Facilities in the energy supply chain are not adequate enough yet to support the government's policy. We're helping the government to prepare it," he said.

As the company has been involved in gas shipping for 30 years, it will support the energy supply chain by procuring an FSRU for gas storage and distribution, Taufik added.

In 2017, Humpuss invested in the procurement of an FSRU for the 1,760-megawatt (MW) Java I gas steam power plant (PLTGU) in West Java, in a consortium with state-owned energy company Pertamina and Japanese trading companies Marubeni and Sojitz. The plant was established with an investment of $1.8 billion.

Humpuss, according to president commissioner Theo Lekatompessy, was also in the process of securing an investment deal to procure an FSRU facility and to provide a shipping vessel for a power generation project in North Sulawesi.

Theo told reporters that the planned FSRU purchase was part of the company’s efforts to add a new source of revenue. 

The company was eyeing a 20-percent increase in its revenue in 2020 from $85.9 million estimated for 2019, Budi said.

The 2019 revenue was 5 percent higher than $81.8 million in 2018 but was 11 percent lower than the targeted $96.8 million.  

Out of the company’s 2019 revenue, 35 percent was contributed by LNG shipping, 22 percent by oil shipping and 21 percent by chemicals shipping.

Budi acknowledged that the low revenue growth was mainly caused by the postponement of some projects as stakeholders were in wait-and-see mode on account of the presidential election in April.

However, the growth rate of Humpuss' revenue was actually far higher than the average revenue growth of 1.43 percent for the overall shipping industry.

"We expect that LNG shipping will continue to be the main sector driving our revenue growth next year because the business opportunity is big," Theo told reporters.

Theo said the FSRU operation for the Java I project in 2021 was expected to become a major source of revenue. (dfr)