LNG Tanker Shortage Persists: Cosco
Despite healthy growth, global LNG carrier capacity will remain insufficient till at least 2020 as new LNG projects coming online, China’s Cosco Shipping Energy said August 30 while announcing its half yearly results.
“Despite the rapid growth of LNG capacity in the next few years, the new LNG projects being continuously completed and put into production, the supply of LNG capacity will continue to be insufficient before 2020,” Cosco said.
According to Cosco, at the beginning of June 2018, the total number of LNG carriers in the world reached 531, with a total capacity of 78.30mn m³. This is 5.9% more than at the start of the year. It is expected that the capacity will increase by 11% in 2018 and by 8% in 2019.
During the first half of 2018, driven by surge in LNG demand in emerging Asian markets such as China and India, the LNG spot shipping market was strong.
As of the end of June 2018, Cosco had a total of 22 LNG vessels with a capacity of 3.65mn m3 in operation, six more and another 1.04mn m3 compared with the end of last year. There are 16 more LNG vessels, totalling 2.77mn m3 under construction which will all be delivered by the end of 2020, Cosco said, adding its LNG shipping business has entered a rapid growth phase.
In the first half of the year, the LNG sector contributed a pre-tax profit of yuan 206mn ($30mn), an increase of 54.3% year on year. However, despite that gain, Cosco incurred an overall first-half loss of about yuan 237mn compared with a profit of yuan 866mn in the year ago period mainly because of overall weak tanker rates.