This is the third in a series of BOTE posts about the implications of a ban on Russian natural gas.
Even if the US and partners can provide LNG are there enough tankers in the world to get them to the EU?
As the EU target is a simple doubling of the IEA target we’ll focus on an increase of ship-borne LNG into the EU from sources like the USA or Qatar. Converting the LNG at EU Standard (15C, 101.325 kPA) you get: 915 tanker loads. (If you’d like to see the spreadsheet, used to calculate this, send us a quick note)
The largest LNG ships in common use today are “Q-Max” ships based on the maximum size of Qatar docking facilities. There are 14 of these with the last delivered in 2010 after a build time of about 2 years in South Korea (with many ships part of orders from 2004). These are the largest representatives of about 650 LNG ships with more buildings now and some undergoing maintenance.
Each Q-Max ship is loaded with about 266,000 Cubic Meters. In round numbers, this would be as shown (ignoring port facilities, pipeline capacities, and other inconvenient details).
The number of ships in the global LNG tanker fleet is approximately 650 with more buildings and some undergoing maintenance.
In quick terms, that’s about 915 tanker loads. Even if the whole world’s fleet were repurposed to address the gap in supply, it would be a stretch to believe that much LNG could be delivered. Even worse, LNG can’t just be dropped off. More on this in our next post.
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