Greater regulatory certainty and a burgeoning bunkering infrastructure worldwide means the conditions could not be better for LNG-fuelled vessels to set sail, says Cristina Saenz de Santa Maria, regional manager Southeast Asia, Pacific & India, DNV GL – Maritime.
With the global economy continuing to pivot towards Asia, it is unsurprising that increased LNG demand within Asia accounted for 55% of total demand growth seen in 2017[i]. Currently Japan is the world’s largest importer of LNG, while China has edged its way into second place, overtaking South Korea. Last year, total demand for LNG in China surged by 50%, reaching 38m tonnes[ii].
And this trend is likely to continue with the DNV GL Energy Transition Outlook (ETO) model predicting that driven by manufacturing sector growth, China’s rising need for natural gas will see it become the leading gas importer by 2030 and overall that Gas will become the largest single source of energy from 2034.
This rise in interest in natural gas and LNG in particular, coincides with the upcoming Global Sulphur cap for ship fuel introduced by the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) which will enter into effect from 1 January 2020. This means that vessels operating in Emission Control Areas (ECA) zones or after the global 0.5% sulphur cap from 2020 will require either a scrubber, or will need to use low sulphur fuel. This new regulatory environment is one of the factors that leads to DNV GL’s model to predict that LNG and LPG will account for 32% of total shipping energy use by 2050. [iii]
