LNG Bunker Group Adds Three New Members

SEA\LNG, an association that aims to further the adoption of LNG as a marine bunker fuel, said March 29 it had recruited three new members: India’s Petronet LNG; Toyota Tsusho Corp (TTC), the trading arm of Japanese manufacturer Toyota; and Florida-based JAX LNG.

It increases the association’s membership – which already included Shell, Qatargas and cruise ships operator Carnival – to 25 companies. The group recently announced an agreement with the Society for Gas as Marine Fuel (SGMF) aimed at making LNG a fuel of choice for the shipowners.

SEA\LNG failed to endorse a reduction of sulphur in bunker fuels globally to 0.5% by 2020, ahead of a vote to enact that last October by the UN International Maritime Organisation, but has since committed itself to making the new limit work. Some of its 25 members wanted the cap only in 2025.

Indian Petronet's 15mn mt/yr capacity Dahej terminal is being expanded to 17.5mn mt/yr by 2019, while its Kochi terminal has a capacity of 5mn mt/yr.

TTC’s subsidiary Toyota Tsusho Petroleum supplies over 5mn mt/yr of bunker fuel and trades bunker fuel worldwide, with a presence in over 150 ports.

JAX LNG was formed in 2015 to bring LNG to Florida and is 50-50 owned by Pivotal LNG, a subsidiary of utility Southern Company, and NorthStar Midstream, backed by Oaktree Capital. The joint venture is building a new LNG storage and bunkering facility at Jacksonville, due for start-up 4Q 2017, that should bolster supplies to shipping in the US and Caribbean coastal waters where a pre-existing 0.1% IMO cap on sulphur in bunker fuels applies.

Eagle LNG, whose separate LNG storage and bunkering facility at Jacksonville is nearing completion, joined SEA\LNG in October; storage tanks for its facility were delivered to the facility this week, according to local media. It is due to open in the coming months, ahead of the JAX facility.

Mark Smedley