Posted - January 20, 2014 - Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide
It is estimated that the global sales of bunker fuels will surpass 350
million tonnes in 2013. The prediction was made in the LNG Bunkering
report
created in collaboration with the LNG Bunkering Summit, taking place
27-29 January 2014 in Amsterdam.
In fiscal terms, global spend on bunkering for 2012 was approximately
$2.6 billion with the top 10 bunker ports controlling more than 35 per
cent of total global bunkering volume.
As of Q4 2013, DNV stated that there were currently 83 LNG-fuelled ships
in operation or on the drawing board worldwide. In line with this,
growth in LNG-powered vessels is set to skyrocket by more than 3,700 per
cent through 2025 with around 3,200 ships set to be commissioned over
the next 12 years. This rise in LNG-based marine traffic will entrain a
concomitant rise in the need for LNG bunker fuelling stations, prompting
a 72 million tonnes rise in LNG usage at an increase of an average of
six per cent per annum.
In the same time period, the European Commission will make major
investments into LNG-fuelling infrastructure to be installed in all 139
major EU maritime and inland ports. Although the EU is leading the way
with regards to funding and affirmative action in the LNG bunkering
story, positive moves in the rest of the world are changing the tide
with regards to the speed of adoption of LNG as a primary bunker fuel.
As the main bunkering port for the Asia Pacific region, the Maritime and
Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore accounts for almost one fifth of the
world’s bunkering demand and fulfils 38 per cent of the market share of
the top 10 bunkering ports combined.
In November 2013, the MPA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with two
Belgian ports, Antwerp and Zeebrugge, “to work together on research,
regulations, and other frameworks for LNG bunkering”. The announcement
follows the commissioning of the island city-state’s first LNG terminal
on Jurong Island in Q2 2013, at a cost of $1.38 billion USD. Its two
trains currently have a throughput capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per
annum and will reach 6 million tonnes per annum by the end of 2013 on
completion of a third train and complimentary plant and docking
facilities.
MPA is in direct competition with two of its main rivals in the
bunkering world to introduce LNG solutions - the Port of Rotterdam in
the Netherlands and the Port Of Fujairah on the United Arab Emirate's
Indian Ocean coast. In October 2013, Rotterdam was awarded €74
million-worth of subsidies by the European Union “to fully develop the
market for LNG as a fuel and to open an LNG hub in Rotterdam before the
end of 2015”.
In the UAE, the first land-based LNG regasification facility received
government approval in November 2013. The terminal will have a projected
throughput capacity of 1.2 billion cubic feet (34 million m³) of
natural gas per day, and will be constructed and operated by
EmiratesLNG, a joint venture of International Petroleum Investment and
Mubadala Petroleum for 2015. One month before approval was given for the
commencement of this megaproject, a venture between Shell and Dubai
Maritime City was announced.
Another factor in the global move towards LNG bunkering is China. It is
estimated that by 2030, China alone will own up to one quarter of the
world commercial fleet, increase its carrying capacity from nine billion
tonnes per year to between 19 and 24 billion tonnes a year. Since the
first trialling of diesel dual technology in 2010, Chinese maritime
companies have commissioned and put into service 30 dual fuel vessels at
a rate of ten per year, including the world's first tugboats operated
on diesel-LNG engines. In June 2013, China’s growing commitment to LNG
powered vessels was affirmed by the classification of six 174,000 m3
dual fuel diesel engine LNG tankers to all hit the waves by 2017.
In a statement released in 2013 by China’s Ministry of Transport (MOT),
the Government of the People's Republic stated its intention to have two
per cent of the domestic Chinese inland fleet operating on LNG dual
fuel vessels by 2015, doubling that number fivefold to ten per cent by
2020. The MOT has targeted the construction of between 200 and 500
vessels solely fuelled by LNG by 2030.
The “gasification” of the Yangtze, the third longest river in the world
is also of great import to the LNG bunkering story in the East. The
Yangtze River Delta generates as much as 20 per cent of China’s GDP and
in 2012, 1.78 billion tonnes of cargo was transported along Asia’s
longest river - three times more cargo as the Mississippi and five times
as much as the Rhine. In September 2013, Haiqi Ganghua Gas Development
constructed the first offshore LNG bunker station along the Yangtze in
Nanjing.
Natural gas services operator China Gas Holding has also promised to
begin LNG bunkering on the Yangtze River in 2014. In a statement to the
press, the company's vice president, Liang Yongchang, said: “There are
lots of vessels which will be converted to LNG power, so there is a big
potential in the LNG bunkering market.”
Source: Maritime Executive
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