It is easier to make decisions on your own than with two other people in the room.

That is the logic Stolt-Nielsen employed in spending $40m to buy out joint venture partners Golar LNG and the Hoegh family from Avenir LNG.

“Before you [had to] run a strategy process that you run together with your joint venture partners,” Stolt-Nielsen chief executive Udo Lange said last week, following the company’s fourth-quarter earnings presentation.