This report aims to present a strategic overview of the emerging Small-Scale LNG (SSLNG) landscape and provide a synopsis of the key differences in the technology and the economics of this rapidly developing part of global LNG. It is an attempt to capture the state of play in SS-LNG, understand its growth drivers, its economics and to make a prognosis for the prospects for SS-LNG in Europe and the Mediterranean area.
The key conclusions of this report are that SS-LNG projects tend to be highly specific to individual country/regional requirements, are driven by the pricing of the petroleum products that introduction of LNG is likely to displace (in most cases diesel) and that developers of such projects have to overcome a number of hurdles of geography, choice of technology fit for purpose to the specific customer requirements and the environmental constraints whilst ensuring that these are addressed in a cost effective manner.
As far as the Euro-Mediterranean region is concerned, the report concludes that the prospects of SS-LNG are attractive, the efforts of the European Commission to enable a competitive environment for SS-LNG are headed in the right direction and that there are some valuable learnings available from key European countries (Norway, UK, Belgium, France, Spain and Germany) that can be leveraged. The most exciting region outside of Europe where SS-LNG is developing rapidly is China. As far as opportunities to participate in the emerging SS-LNG supply chain are concerned, the industry is rapidly globalizing and companies/business in the Euro-Mediterranean region, with an established marine and industrial engineering skills base, are well positioned to capture these.
