LNG Bunkering Event Held in Zeebrugge, Belgium

Around 50 participants gathered yesterday in Zeebrugge to attend an internal ESPO workshop on LNG bunkering. The event was hosted by the Port of Zeebrugge and the Fluxys LNG terminal and initiated by the ESPO Marine Affairs and Security Committee.

Principal aim was to shed light on safety related considerations of LNG bunkering and operations. Authorities, ports and the shipping industry all over Europe are looking at LNG as a promising solution to comply with the forthcoming IMO regulations on sulphur emissions and to respond to ship generated air pollution in general. The workshop brought together a variety of port professionals, including harbour masters and environmental managers, LNG experts, shipowners and environmental NGOs. The workshop coincided with the initiative of DG Move and EMSA, who were both present, to set up expert group meetings on LNG involving ports, shipowners and other stakeholders.

The workshop demonstrated that a number of ports, especially within the SECA area, are well advanced in setting up facilities for the provision of LNG as bunker fuel. “The experience of these ‘early adopters’ is very useful and ESPO is the right platform for sharing their information with other European ports and establishing links with other initiatives, also at global level”, said Patrick Verhoeven, Secretary General of ESPO. So far projects seem to focus mainly on ship to ship bunkering by the use of bunker barges. However, other solutions are also under review by the industry, such as the use of tank containers onboard ships.

Facilitating the provision of LNG bunkering fits with the key task of port authorities in advancing the sustainability of the port community. At the same time, just like shore-side electricity, LNG should not become a panacea. Ports have to see what fits best with their own profile and local air quality situation. Reflecting on the potential of LNG to respond to the challenge of improving the environmental performance of shipping, Antoine Kedzierski, Policy Advisor at Transport & Environment, pointed out that, although LNG has a very good performance when it comes to SOx and NOx emissions, it still is a fossil fuel that does not respond adequately to all environmental challenges (e.g. climate change). Therefore ports and the shipping industry should avoid placing ‘all eggs in one basket’.

The debate demonstrated that, to make the provision and use of LNG a reality, practical organisation, fuel availability and price, safety and security implications and public perception need specific attention. Especially public perception is a vital issue. Although LNG is essentially a safe fuel as its safety track records demonstrate, it is not perceived as such. Therefore early and thorough stakeholder consultation is essential when developing LNG projects. It should also be noticed that the stringent safety measures for large scale LNG import vessels cannot apply to ships running on LNG fuel and LNG bunker vessels. The safety rules and procedures for those ships need to be carefully considered in order to make LNG bunkering in ports both safe and realistic.

Ports can break the ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma regarding the provision of LNG fuel by adopting a pro-active policy, but on the regulatory level a chicken and egg situation still exists. Participants at the workshop discussed whether there is a need for a common framework of rules at European level. Henrik Ringbom, Head of Unit at EMSA, said that his agency was currently undertaking an analysis of the different tools that are in place or under development in Europe and internationally in view of identifying any potential gaps that require attention. Opinions may differ on whether a common framework of rules is needed at this stage, but both EMSA and the Commission said to be willing to discuss this together with the industry. Some participants however noted that the worst that could happen was for stringent rules to appear at a later stage, when projects would be already up and running.

[mappress]

LNG World News Staff, April 20, 2012; Image: Anthony Veder