Near term impasse on LNG bunkering in Asia

However from the owners' view, economics is the  most important factor (32%) driving the use of LNG as a fuel compared to availability (20%) and location (18%), according to the latest Lloyd's Register LNG Bunkering Infrastructural Survey 2014.

This clearly sets up a huge disconnect in Asia, where just three of the 22 ports responding to the global survey came from. According to Lloyd's Register (LR) Marine Global Strategic Marketing Manager Luis Benito, all the survey respondents saw the demand issue in the same way, ie there must be demand first for them to want to provide LNG bunkering. However unlike in Europe, where this demand already exists, it is still very much a chicken and the egg situation here in Asia.

Specifically the two conditions that make LNG bunkering attractive in Europe, where the bulk of the port respondents (15 out of 22) came from, that is the presence of emissions control areas (ECAs) and reasonably priced gas, do not exist in Asia now.

LR Global Fobas manager Douglas Raitt ventured that Singapore is going ahead with its LNG bunkering plans regardless of these adverse conditions because it may have more strategic goals in mind. "It may be for competitive reasons for example," he said, where the port want to provide the greatest diversity of services for its clients.