Lloyds List: Hundreds of LNG ships must be built says Cook: “Linda Cook, Royal Dutch Shell's executive director of gas and power, forecast demand for LNG cargoes will increase five-fold by 2030”: 'From a fleet of 179 ships we will need more than 600 while there are 69 under construction or on order.': Thursday Sept 22, 2005

AS GLOBAL demand for liquefied natural gas rockets over the next 30 years, more than 400 new liquefied natural gas carriers will be required to cover transportation requirements, writes Martyn Wingrove.

In order to cover the rapidly increasing shipping needs for this sector, more shipyards capable of building LNG vessels are also needed.

Linda Cook, Royal Dutch Shell's executive director of gas and power, forecast demand for LNG cargoes will increase five-fold by 2030, meaning 100 more processing trains will need to be built and a fleet of more than 600 LNG carriers will be required.

'Global LNG demand will grow at 10% per year over the next 10 years and capacity with increase five-fold by 2030,' she said at London's Oil ' Money conference.

'From a fleet of 179 ships we will need more than 600 while there are 69 under construction or on order.'

Growth in the sector is driven by bulging demand from North American LNG markets, plus expanding requirements for cargoes to Europe and emerging markets in Asia, including China and India.

'Growth in LNG has been enabled by significant reductions in capital costs, plus increases in train and ship sizes, making LNG more viable over longer distances,' said Ms Cook.

John Martin, managing director of ABN Amro bank, carried on the discussion by urging more shipyards to enter the LNG vessel building market to keep ship costs down.

'The trend in LNG shipping is that vessel size is growing,' he said. 'We need more competition from the yards and new yards to come into the market. There is also pressure on costs from steel prices and on charter rates. Speculative newbuilds are a key driver to develop the spot market.'

He expects global inter-regional trade in natural gas to treble with half of this using LNG. He forecast the whole LNG chain will need investment of $250bn to meet demand for new plants, ships and regasification facilities.

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