Australia’s Global Energy Ventures (GEV), a developer of global integrated marine compressed natural gas (CNG) projects, and Yantai CIMC Raffles Offshore Limited (CIMC Raffles) have extended their Letter of Intent (LoI) to build the CNG Optimum 200 ships.

The extension is for six months through to December 31, 2020, according to a stock exchange filing from GEV.

The LoI concerns the construction of four firm 200MMscf Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) ships with the option for GEV to order up to an additional four ships.

It was signed back in July 2019, paving the way for the signing of a shipbuilding contract.

GEV said at the time that the proposed contract price range was $ 135-140 million per ship.

“During the past six months our project teams have worked closely with the team at CIMC Raffles to complete important marine engineering work on our priority projects in Brazil and the US. This work has taken the base design of the CNG Optimum ship and qualified new designs to include two additional methods for loading gas offshore. These are the STL and SAL gas loading systems,” Executive Chairman and CEO Maurice Brand said.

“This work has put the company into a strong position to secure our first project CNG project for multiple applications including Brazil and the US.”