- Natural Gas Tops Alternative Ship Fuel Orders in Sept 2024.
- NG Leads Alternative Fuels for New Ship Orders, Methanol Follows Closely.
- Conventional Fuels Still Dominate, but LNG Gains Ground in the Alternative Fuel Market.
Statistics from DNV reveal that liquefied natural gas has emerged as the most popular alternative fuel for ships ordered in September 2024, surpassing methanol, which remains the other alternative fuel for vessels ordered in the month, reports Seatrade Maritime.
Order Book for September
DNV’s Alternative Fuels Insights reports that there were nine LNG-fuelled and eight methanol-powered vessel orderings in September.
This is indeed a great direction being taken by the maritime industry in moving towards the preferred fuel source of LNG.
Year-to-Date Performance
For instance, whereas vessel orders with propulsion readiness for LNG have risen by 57% y-o-y, to 169 vessels for the year ending September 2024, vessel orders with methanol propulsion have declined by 1% to 133 vessels.
On record, the statistics do not include ready notations, and the LNG statistics do not account for carriers specifically for LNG.
Reversal of Trends
The jump in LNG orders is a sharp about-turn from trends seen earlier this year. Methanol accounted for 8pc of new vessel orders over the past 12 months while LNG accounted for 6pc, according to a new report.
Maersk recently confirmed high-profile LNG-fuelled vessel orders, seeming to do an about-turn from earlier thinking that had positioned methanol as the company’s fuel of the future.
Conventional Fuels Remain Dominant
As DNV underlines, the update shows conventional fuels are the main source of power for the existing fleet. Gross tonnage stands at approximately 96.9% of vessels in operation, and it is 99.17% of the fleet when referred to as several ships.
Among the alternative fuels, LNG leads the ordered fleet with 2.49% by GT and 0.62% by number of ships, well ahead of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in second place, and boasting a tenfold lead on methanol.
Alternative Fuels in the Order Book
Alternative fuels fare much better in the order book, comprising 41.89% of the fleet by gross tonnage. By ship number, alternative fuels comprise 16.85% and have been skewed more towards larger vessels in terms of adoption.
Presently, LNG is the largest alternative fuel covering 24.3% of ships on order, and methanol is at second place with 14.1%.
Container Ships Lead in Alternative Fuel Adoption
Container ships will be the largest users of alternative fuels both in the existing fleet and in the order book, numbering close to 600. Gas tankers follow with about 280 vessels, mainly LPG-fuelled, most probably for LPG carriers.
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Source: Seatrade-Maritime
