Norway's Stolt-Nielsen remains some way from pushing the button on an initial public offering for small-scale gas shipping joint-venture Avenir LNG.

Avenir is co-owned with Golar LNG and Hoegh LNG, and is building a series of LNG vessels in Asia.

Asked about a potential float of the company, Stolt-Nielsen chief executive Niels Stolt-Nielsen told analysts on a conference call: "I can say that [with] Avenir, our ambition is not to be a shipping company, but to develop to ...