About us

The LNG project approved 4 years ago has gradually begun to release production capacity. It is expected that the demand for LNG shipping market will continue to grow from this year to 2020.

So before the Shun Tak Maritime Network in the "LNG shipping market will continue to be hot, analysts are bullish, the shipowners refused to rent!" as reported in the report, some charterers in order to be able to make good time difference like Chenier Cheniere Energy Before the LNG producers raised their production, they first seized the ship and grasped the capacity to be active on the chartering ship, which opened the ship-to-ship battle.

Per-Christian Fett, head of LNG Research at Fearnleys, an international shipping authority, also expressed optimism about the LNG shipping market. “There will be a lot of LNG in the market to be transported in the future, and the block is currently The shipping market is still relying on some older LNG fleets."

Fett said that the current market requires large ships to transport large quantities of goods over long distances, and old ships will not be competitive. In the current market environment, the new large modern ships have relatively limited capacity, and it is recommended that market participants who need modern ships need to do so early.

“In the next few years, the shipping capacity will be very tight, especially for those high quality ships.”

Due to the huge demand for coal to gas in China, and the lack of preparations earlier in the year, the northern part of China suffered a “gas shortage” in the winter of 2017. The LNG shipping market closed strongly in 2017. After a relatively short period of time in the first half of this year, the LNG shipping market quickly and quickly recovered before entering this year. In June of this year, the daily rent of some modern large-scale LNG ships even exceeded 100,000 US dollars.

Since entering July, the LNG shipping market seems to have cooled down. However, after August, LNG ship rents began to gradually rebound, and the fleet capacity pool began to shrink.

Fett said, "In fact, most analysts have previously said that the market will be relatively good this winter and next year."

So far, the demand for LNG has come mainly from Asia, especially China. It is understood that the demand for LNG in China in the first half of this year has increased by 50% compared with the previous year.

However, it should be noted that Fett said that although the market prospects are optimistic, it is necessary to pay attention to the possible adverse effects of the weather conditions this winter, and also note that there are several items that failed to be on time this fall. Putting into production may cause some ships to sublease into the spot market and bring certain adverse effects to the charter market.

Specifically, if everything is normal, Chenere Energy's Sabine Pass LNG and Corpus Christi LNG, plus Australia's Shell Prelude FLNG and Inpex Ichthys LNG projects will be put into production soon. In addition, next year, the Yamal project is expected to increase production by 340,000 tons per year. In the US, the current production is about 300 mtpa. By 2020, its LNG production will also increase by 100 mtpa.

Most of these projects were approved for production between 2013 and 2014. Fett said that the market is currently preparing for the next round of final investment decisions. Production in the United States, the Middle East and Africa will increase further.

Regarding the trend of the future market, Fett further commented, "From the historical market point of view, modern LNG ships were mainly put into the spot market in the past few years, and such a situation may change because the newly built ships are being chartered. People will snatch away, and more relatively old ships will be placed in the spot market in the future."

At present, traders are more involved in the LNG market and have become an increasingly important part of the market. On the other hand, it believes that the current market development is more favorable for independent shipowners, because the project side is not interested in mastering the ship now, but is more willing to rent the ship. ”

Source: Shun Tak Maritime Network