Liquefied Natural Gas Transportation Research Articles

LNG Transportation, Risk Management, and Maritime Security

ABSTRACT Liquefied natural gas (LNG) was the focus of great speculation, evaluation, and facility construction in the late 1970s due to extremely high oil prices and the need for large, sustainable quantities of energy in the US. Importing natural gas in its liquefied form in special-constructed ships was necessary to meet US energy demand. However, lower prices and bringing the oil crisis under control subsequently caused the market potential for LNG to diminish during the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the vessels and facilities constructed in the US to meet the potential demand in the 1970s remained out of service for the next 20 years. However, recent changes in the global and US energy markets have put LNG in the marketplace spotlight again. There is momentum building to create an infrastructure to support the import of LNG into coastal communities around North America. Especially in the wake of the terrible events of September 11, 2001, government and citizens are apprehensive about the potential risks of...

Exporting natural gas in the form of LNG

The export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is much more capital intensive than the export of oil, requiring an initial investment perhaps three to five times greater per unit of energy transported. Moreover, a minimum recoverable reserve of 5 to 6 × 10 12 ft 3 must be available to support an LNG export project. This threshold is a compromise between scale economies, on the one hand, and the difficulties of mobilizing large-scale financing on the other. Countries considering the export of LNG must take into consideration potential cost increases and the difficulties of synchronizing revenue streams with debt-service requirements. The investment costs of liquefaction and LNG transportation are presented in this paper, along with discussions of alternative financing methods and potential LNG markets.

Transportation of LNG from the Arctic by Commercial Submarine

The paper examines the feasibility of shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Arctic by submarine tanker. Among the advantages of an under-ice commercial transport system, the authors include the safe, reliable movement of LNG on a regular schedule unimpeded by surface weather conditions; the minimum environmental impact on the fragile Arctic ecology; and the economic superiority over alternative systems by the adaptation of a well-proven technology. Conceptual designs of two such mammoth submarines, both nuclear and nonnuclear powered, are illustrated.

Us public and private regulation of LNG transport

Abstract The authors examine the propositions that the private banking sector is capable of assuring that liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects are economically viable and that the insurance sector is capable of rating the relative risks of LNG projects to assure their operations are as safe as possible. If the markets could assure these outcomes, government regulation of LNG projects could be reduced. Reviews of public and private regulation of safety and economic viability suggest that the private sector cannot serve these functions adequately. Unless private financial and insurance enterprises are induced by government regulations to smooth their own operating cycles, private self-regulation of major new developments is unlikely to be effective. In the case of LNG, the red tape of governmental bureaucracy may have prevented the large-scale development of costly, potentially hazardous, white elephants, but for all the wrong reasons.

On Marine Transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas

Notwithstanding the very few experience we have in construction and operations of LNG carriers throughout the world, recently, there is a remarkable tendency to rapidly increase the ship's size only from a view point to improve the; economical feasibility in transportation cost.The writer is afraid that this concept will not satisfy the expectation for a scale merit but rather lead to concentration of risks, whereas the LNG tank has a fatal restriction in unit tank volume due to technical problems, both in the case of the self-supporting type or the membrane type, and this boundary is quite different from the case of conventional oil tankers.