Tight Asia capacity limits room for new LNG ships in South Korea

Delayed growth: Cranes operate over a shipbuilding yard in Geoje. Shipyards in South Korea are struggling to expand due to labour shortages and price rises for key materials. — Bloomberg

SEOUL: Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) has mostly filled its order book for the next two and a half years as the pandemic drove demand for container ships, leaving little room to meet the needs of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, a senior company executive says.

With United States LNG exports rising, more LNG carriers are travelling longer distances to customers in North Asia and Europe while European countries have snapped up floating storage and regasification units or FSRUs as they ramp up LNG imports to replace Russian gas supplies in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.