EMEA News
LNG Bunkering: Norwegian Player Says Floating Terminals Beat Building Land Based Infrastructure
Norway-based Kanfer Shipping is advocating for the use of mobile offshore terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering worldwide, rather than focusing resources towards land-based infrastructure, Tradewinds reports.
Kanfer director and founder Stig Anders Hagen says placing an emphasis on mobile floating terminals would be a faster and easier way to service the growing global fleet of LNG-fueled vessels, the number of which reach around 1000 in the next five years, according to DNV GL predictions.
"The future of small and medium-scale LNG terminals is not expensive, irreversible land-based tank farms at unique shoreside properties," said Hagen.
"A floating solution is highly cost-efficient, mobile, flexible, scalable and re-saleable, and has a much lower financial risk than the alternatives."
Hagen says the construction of a small-scale LNG ship and distribution facility with 6,000-cubic-metre capacity could come with a $45 million-$55 million price tag, while Kanfer's floating distribution and terminal solution is currently estimated to cost around $50 million.
By contrast, Hagen places the rough costs of a land-based facility at $35 million, which includes the price of buying properly-zoned land along the shore.
Kanfer is reportedly working on a design for a scaleable floating terminal that could potentially handle between 500 cubic metres to 30,000 cubic metres of LNG, though the company declined to reveal other details.
The company says it has already started projects on four continents, signed three letters of intent, along with forming partnerships with both a shipowner and an oil company.
The push for a large-scale network of land-based LNG terminals has been especially strong in Europe, where in 2013 the European Commission (EC) mandated LNG refuelling stations to be built in all major ports by 2025.
