Gothenburg Continues LNG Support

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A ship-to-ship bunkering of LNG carried out in the port of Gothenburg between the Coralius and Ternsund. Photo courtesy of the port of Gothenburg.

The port of Gothenburg has renewed its port tariff discount initiative for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) powered vessels that was introduced in 2015.

The port authority has made the decision to renew and extend the discount period for LNG powered vessels as the market moves towards greener energy alternatives, with several investments in LNG fuel being made by Swedish shipping companies.

The adoption of LNG as a fuel source, and the introduction of initiatives such as the port of Gothenburg’s tariff discount to encourage uptake, has had a positive impact on the environment — with reported reductions in emissions of sulphur dioxide, particles and nitric oxide in western Sweden.

The Gothenburg Port Authority’s environmental discount scheme gives a 10% discount to vessels with good environmental performance based against the ESI and CSI; globally recognised environmental indexes.

Vessels that run entirely on LNG receive a further discount of 20% for each call, a discount that is subject to a time limit with the possibility of being extended to encourage further adoption of the fuel source.

The use of LNG began to gain momentum at the port of Gothenburg in the latter half of 2016, however it was first met with scepticism — with concerns from companies over investing without a means of bunkering at the port, and concerns from bunkering companies over supplying LNG without a customer base.

Read the latest technical paper on the risks of Heavy Fuel Oil from Dr. Bryan Comer of the International Council on Clean Transportation

Environmental Manager at the Gothenburg Port Authority, Edvard Molitor, commented: “A catalyst was necessary to break the deadlock, and the energy discount has been a strong contributing factor behind many players choosing to follow the LNG route.

“It took time before it really took off, but today these players are at the LNG forefront at the Port of Gothenburg.

“Now that the discount period is drawing to a close, we can see that the upward trend is continuing at the port with a growing number of LNG calls.

“We aim to maintain our support for this development, and we are therefore planning to extend the four-year discount period by a further two years.”

The 20% LNG discount will continue until 2020, where it will be reduced to 10% — to be later replaced with an alternative environmental discount that will take greater account of a vessel’s overall environmental impact.

Molitor added: “We will of course continue to support vessels that offer a good environmental profile, but we won’t make any distinction in the discount between vessels that produce the same environmental outcomes.

“As the environmental effects of LNG operation continue to be good, these will also be incorporated into our future environmental control system.”

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