Lack of LNG Fuel Infrastructure Seen as "Opportunity"

LNG bunkering can be done in new ways

The lack of port infrastructure for LNG bunkering is "increasingly being seen as an opportunity" to try new methods for providing the fuel, Mark Bell, general manager of the Society for Gas as a Marine Fuel (SGMF) told industry news site World Maritime News.

"The advantages of having a clean sheet of paper if you will, is being able to provide strategically the best bunkering solutions for LNG," Bell said.

"You are not stuck with an existing infrastructure, you can put it wherever you want it."

Bell said LNG could be supplied from a package liquefaction plant on a small scale in almost any location, or from an offshore supply terminal in an anchorage.

"You hear a lot of the industry say it has got to be a bunker barge, it has got to be done in the same way, and that is the way we have always done it," he added.

"That is the hindrance, and the main challenge is not being able to think differently and do things differently."

Bell also said the industry must move quickly on adoption of LNG bunkers, and noted other industries were moving far quicker towards adoption of gas as a fuel.

"The maritime industry is not the fastest moving industry in the world, such a major shift is not going to happen overnight," he said.

"Maritime industry might find itself a little bit late in the pecking order, so speed I would say would be one of the major challenges."

Bell said SGMF is working to raise public awareness of the environmental benefits of LNG bunkers and to ensure its safe use.

SGMF is developing guidelines for use of the fuel, the importance of which the group said is clear from an LNG leak during a bunkering operation in Norway earlier this year.