September 2, 2002

MOL Signs Long-Term Charter Contract for LNG Carrier Newbuilding to Serve SNOHVIT Project

TOKYO Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL; President: Kunio Suzuki) today announced that its joint company with Leif Hoegh & Co. ASA (Headquarters: Oslo, Norway) signed agreements for long-term employment of a LNG carrier newbuilding with French oil major TotalFinaElf (Headquarters: Paris) on August 29 in London for shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the SNOHVIT plant in the Barents Sea off northern Norway.

A joint venture company will own the LNG carrier with a cargo tank capacity of 145,000m3 and a Moss Rosenberg spherical cargo containment system. The ship has been ordered from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and will be chartered to TotalFinaElf Exploration Norge AS (Headquarters: Stavanger, Norway), a subsidiary of TotalFinaElf, upon delivery in January 2006.

This is the second charter contract for MOL and Leif Hoegh to serve the SNOHVIT project. The first was concluded with Statoil as operator on behalf of certain owners in the SNOHVIT field in December 2001.

MOL is a worldwide leader in the safe, reliable transport of LNG, with experience dating back to 1983, when it launched a project to supply customers in Japan with gas from Indonesia. Since then, the company has steadily increased its involvement in the LNG trade, and is now involved in over 20 transport projects. MOL participates in the ownership or operation of about 50 LNG carriers worldwide, including several under construction.

MOL also dispatched a general manager to its London office in June, to oversee the LNG projects in Europe and to ensure a smooth start-up of the SNOHVIT project.

Natural gas from the SNOHVIT gas field in the Barents Sea in northern Norway is produced and liquefied for export to North America and Europe (Annual production volume: About 5.7 billion m3, equivalent to about 4.2 million tons of LNG). TotalFinaElf is handling its own transportation needs, independent of the other SNOHVIT partners. TotalFinaElf holds an 18.4% share in the project, and other SNOHVIT partners hold 69.6%, and Gaz de France holds 12%.