EU regulations underestimate shipping emissions from LNG

A new study by Transport & Environment has revealed that the emissions savings of ships running on liquified fossil natural gas (LNG) are much less than assumed by the EU’s green shipping fuels law (FuelEU Maritime).

Those laws demand that fuel emissions are calculated on a life-cycle basis, from being extracted and processed, transported to and stored in ports, loaded onto ships and ultimately burned as fuel. 

The problem, as identified by T&E, is that FuelEU Maritime considers all LGN to be the same, no matter how those early stages might differ from one supplier country to another.

As such an upstream emissions factor of 18.5 grams of CO₂ equivalent per megajoule (MJ) of energy is applied to all LNG.

The new research has found that emissions from the LGN which is imported to the EU is 30% higher than this, at 24.4 grams of CO2. 

They point out that this means that a large container ship running on LNG would emit an extra 2,731 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent every year. Or another way, the hidden emissions are the equivalent to 223 container ship journeys between New York and the Netherlands.

When used in cruise ships, LNG imported from the USA, Russia and Algeria is actually worse for the climate than heavy fuel oil. For context, 46% of the LNG imported into the EU come from the USA.

Inesa Ulichina, shipping officer at T&E, said: ‘Fossil gas will never be sustainable and is even dirtier than previously thought. Extracting, transporting and burning methane is a leaky business. This costly pursuit is leading major shipping companies to waste billions on a solution that won’t bring them any closer to their zero-emission goals. Instead, they should focus on investing in green e-fuels production.

‘The EU and the IMO can stop incentivising fossil gas by fully taking into account its full lifecycle emissions – from the ground to the sea.’

The significance of establishing the genuine emissions of shops running on LNG is evidence by the fact that the numbers are set to double. There are currently 1,200 LNG-powered vessels at sea but there is nearly 1,000 more in the order books.