Optimization of liquefied natural gas bunkering vessel design

Abstract

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has emerged as one of the alternative marine fuels for ship owners in order to comply with the Sulphur cap implemented under the IMO 2020. A new type of purpose-designed LNG Bunkering Vessel (LBV) has been in development to meet the demand for LNG bunkering operation. Based on the slow emergence of several competing designs since 2017, there is still uncertainty on what the dominant design would be for LBV. New firms entering into the market must look into and decide what will be the design of their choice. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the designs through benchmarking analysis of Charterers’ requirement and selecting the design that is most likely would be the dominant design in the future. Three (3) worldwide tenders for LBV within 2017 – 2018 have been selected as the subjects for the case study. Through market analysis, Charterers’ mandatory requirements and preferred solutions are identified. Focus groups consisting relevant stakeholders are engaged to provide additional solutions and also come out with several designs. The designs are then technically and commercially evaluated. The research identified fourteen (14) key functional requirements out of eighty (80) specified and also contributed ten (10) additional solutions. Three designs namely D1 (full compliance with best technical specification), D2 (full compliance with adequate technical specification) and D3 (optimized specification) are proposed through morphological analysis. The research found several key characteristics of Charterers’ requirement; majority of them are payload functions, emphasis on compatibility and preference for flexibility to maintain worldwide trading. The commercial evaluation found that there is significant price differential between designs, with the extreme being 14% between D1 and D3. The study shows that there are trade-offs to be considered in terms of performance envelope, compatibility, flexibility, ease of operation and ship price when considering for the optimum LBV design.