LNG roars back as leading alternative fuel

Lobby group SEA-LNG has announced this week that active LNG-fuelled vessels now account for more than 2% of the global shipping fleet. Once the orderbook is taken into account, this number increases to 4% by vessel numbers or 6% by deadweight tonnage (dwt). Numbers have grown from 21 LNG-fuelled vessels in operation in 2010, many of them smaller ships operating regionally, to 590 in operation globally today, including the world’s largest container ships twice the size of any operating in 2010. With a further 564 on order, the total number of LNG-powered vessels in operation by the end of 2028 will be 1,154. Added to these are 772 LNG carriers in operation, with a further 341 on order at the end of 2023. This means that over 2,000 of the world’s 60,000 largest vessels are LNG-powered. In addition, according to DNV, LNG dual-fuel vessels make up one-third of the newbuild order book. If dwt is used, the LNG-powered fleet in operation and on order of 142.5m dwt represents 6% of the world’s total 2.22bn dwt.

Peter Keller, chairman of SEA-LNG, said: “It is gratifying that LNG is finally gaining favour amongst so many shipowners. LNG is the only practical and realistic alternative fuel pathway available today – even for those shipowners that may also be considering other such pathways.”

Keller said the likes of liquefied biomethane and eventually hydrogen-based e-methane could be the next options for owners looking at LNG as a fuel. 

Keller claimed yesterday methane slip, a cause of huge concern for many environmentalists, will be eliminated for all engine technologies within the decade.  In the last three months, LNG has roared back as the number one alternative fuel for newbuild contracts, according to data from DNV, with methanol slipping. 

“LNG is clearly the headline story since the summer, accounting for around 60% of all alternative fuelled new orders in the third quarter mainly thanks to a strong uptake in the container segment,” commented Jason Stefanatos, global decarbonisation director at DNV Maritime.

LNG as shipping’s primary alternative fuel choice has attracted plenty of criticism in recent years including from many NGOs and even the World Bank.

A new report authored by Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist at Cornell University in the US, has claimed that LNG exports are 33% worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal.

At last week’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) held at the headquarters of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Ocean Rebellion, an activist group, held a protest (pictured below) demanding shipping wean itself off LNG as a fuel.  

“SEA-LNG has been very successful, so successful that companies like Maersk, Royal Caribbean, and MSC have been promoting their ships as ‘green’ and selling this lie to the general public. LNG is not a green fuel,” Ocean Rebellion argued in a release.