BIMCO: LNG Bunkers "Not an Option" for Most Ships

BIMCO President John Denholm said there are questions around the supply of MDO

John Denholm, president of the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), told the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)'s World Maritime Day Symposium on Thursday that Liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkers are "not an option" for most ships, SeaTrade Global reports.

Denholm said a lack of distribution systems, combined with the cost of retrofitting vessels to use the fuel, makes it generally impractical.

"For the vast majority of ships, the only fuel they can consider is Marine Diesel Oil (MDO)," he said.

Denholm said that raises the question of whether there will be sufficient distillate fuel available to meet demand in 2020 when the global cap on the sulfur content of marine fuel drops to 0.5 percent.

In order to do so, he said the refining industry would have to increase production by 15 to 20 percent.

"And what's going to happen to the high sulphur fuel at the bottom of the cracking tower?" he asked. "What are the refineries going to do with it?"

Denholm said the sulfur content limit "was put in place before the technology was available to meet its requirements, and without regard to the practicalities of retrofitting."

He said the difficulty of adopting LNG fuel is a particular problem for the older generation of shipowners that were hurt by the crash in the market after 2008.

The adoption of LNG bunkers is the subject of much debate in the industry.

Martin Shaw of the consultancy Marine Operations and Assurance Management Solutions said recently that there is no clear "green light" for adoption of the fuel, but some industry players have said adopting LNG is the most logical thing to do.