Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it has founded a new firm in the Bahamas to own a tanker for transporting liquefied natural gas to Japan under the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development project off the Russian island of Sakhalin.

Capitalized at 4.1 billion yen, the new firm, Cygnus LNG Shipping Ltd., is 70 percent owned by Tepco and 15 percent each by shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K. and trading house Mitsubishi Corp.

The new firm will take delivery of the LNG tanker from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. in late 2008. The tanker will begin LNG transportation in 2009.