A techno-economic study of shipping LNG to the Asia-Pacific from Western Canada by LNG carrier

There is a high demand for natural gas in the Asia-Pacific region. Most of this gas is exported from the Middle East, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. There is interest in the Asia-Pacific to diversify its import portfolio. From a Canadian perspective, there are abundant resources of natural gas in Western Canada, and countries in the Asia-Pacific are potential customers. This paper develops the cost of shipping a unit of natural gas (in liquefied form) from proposed liquefaction facilities in Western Canada to liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-gasification terminals in Asia-Pacific countries (Japan, China, and India). Fundamental engineering principles-based models were developed to estimate costs. A comparative analysis of delivery costs to Japan, China, and India is presented. To account for various propulsion systems available for LNG carriers, five scenarios were developed. Calm water resistance for the two different categories of LNG carriers was estimated. These estimates were used to determine the required propulsion power needed for an LNG carrier at a given speed and to select the appropriate main engine. The results of this study show that shipping costs to Japan range from 51-95 U.S. cents/GJ depending on the type of propulsion system selected and for an average transport distance of 7793 km. The shipping costs to China and India range from 59-113 U.S. cents/GJ and 98-197 U.S. cents/GJ for an average transport distance of 9475 km and 17,035 km, respectively. The results show that a propulsion system burning only natural gas as primary fuel is the most economical scenario, while a propulsion system based on pure marine diesel oil is the least economical. In addition to a sensitivity analysis, a risk analysis was conducted to identify the range of shipping costs in each scenario with their occurrence probability measure. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.