Petronas supplies first LNG cargo to marine-fuel vessel ahead of new mandate

SINGAPORE: Malaysia’s state energy firm Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) yesterday supplied its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo to a newly built LNG marine fuel supply vessel ahead of a new mandate for ships to switch to cleaner fuels in 2020.

Petronas LNG, loaded the cargo onto the world’s largest LNG bunker vessel Kairos at the Regasification Terminal Pengerang in Johor, Petronas said in a statement.

“We believe that small-scale LNG opportunities will increase from the utilisation of alternative cleaner fuel such as LNG,” Petronas LNG CEO Ezhar Yazid Jaafar said.

Shipowners are seeking cleaner fuels, including LNG, to meet new regulations imposed by the International Maritime Organisation in January 2020 that cap the sulphur content of ship fuel, also known as bunkers, at 0.5%.

The Kairos has a capacity of 7,500 cubic metres of LNG, and it stopped in Malaysia to refuel while making its way from South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in Ulsan to Europe, Petronas said.

Kairos is owned by Babcock Schulte Energy and is on time-charter by Blue LNG, a joint venture company between Nauticor and Klaipedos Nafta.

Kairos is now on its voyage to the Baltic, where it will deliver into time charter on arrival at Klaipeda, Lithuania, said Angus Campbell, Bernhard Schulte’s corporate director of energy projects. – Reuters