Joining the Qatar and Indonesia LNG projects (1993)

An investment that bought length of time

Entering LNG transport was not merely the addition of one more ship type. Against crude tankers, whose profit and loss changes every few months with the spot market, LNG carriers run on contracts lasting twenty years. What Iino chose in 1993 can be read as the duration of earnings rather than their size. Taking fractional interests rather than holding ten vessels alone was likewise a device for joining long-term contracts on a scale that matched its capital.

A business built on long contracts, though, always brings with it the question of what to load once the contract ends. The company’s LNG vessels have since left its hands, and its 2025 management agenda lists restarting the business as an issue to be examined. Meanwhile, in the next cargoes — ammonia, ethane — it has put itself on the side that holds the world’s first carrier. What kind of company do you continue to be, in terms of what you carry? The 1993 participation shows a management pattern that keeps answering that question through the choice of ship type.