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LNG bunkering: a chicken and egg situation

LNG bunkering: a chicken and egg situation
LNG bunkering has garnered a lot of interest in the market but use of natural gas a fuel for ships remains extremely limited. Marcus Hand looks at the whether the hurdles to widespread usage can be overcome.

Continued high fuel prices are a major worry for the shipping industry and it would seem the days of cheap bunkers have been consigned to the history books. On top of this, ever stricter emissions regulations will further tighten bunker fuel markets.

On an immediate level shipowners have taken to measures like slow steaming, virtual arrival and even simply turning their engines off and drifting to port. But taking a longer term view the search for an alternative to heavy fuel oil has taken off in earnest. Various concepts and ideas have been floated including modern day sails, battery power and LNG. It is the last – LNG – that seems to have garnered the most interest.

There have been a constant stream of seminars on the topic and it seems almost impossible to attend a shipping event without someone bringing up the topic. LNG is an obvious alternative as it is both clean and there are plentiful reserves.

However, it is not quite that simple to make the switch. Most discussions come down to a chicken and egg situation of an unwillingness by shipowners to invest in using a fuel that has very limited supply infrastructure, while investments in fueling stations will not be made if there are no customers. On top of this, certain ship types, such as large containerships, are not suited to using LNG due to the lack of space to install the large tanks required.

Norway has got around the lack of fuel stations with heavy government investment and is currently the only country that uses LNG for marine fuel on a fairly wide basis. Singapore is including an LNG bunkering facility in its LNG terminal that is currently under construction and is looking to incentivise its use by harbour craft.

However, wider scale use by regional or long haul shipping will require a much greater level of infrastructure investment. Whether the political will to make this happen in enough countries exists is very much open to question. Much more lobbying will be required by the shipping industry to make LNG as a fuel a widespread reality.