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The president and chief executive officer (CEO) of container shipping firm United Arab Shipping Company (UASC), Jørn Hinge [pictured], has this week rejected the idea that the company plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering station in the Middle East to refuel its vessels, thus seemingly quashing claims made by a director at DNV GL.

Earlier this year, Jost Bergmann, business director containerships for DNV GL, was said to have claimed that UASC planned to develop an LNG bunkering station in the Middle East to enable its new mega boxships to refuel on outbound and inbound legs on the Asia – Europe trade. "They are going to establish an LNG bunkering station in the Middle East," Bergmann was quoted as saying in January, in reference to UASC.

Speaking to Seatrade Global at the Seatrade Middle East Maritime 2014 (SMEM 2014) exhibition and convention, held from October 28-30, Hinge is quoted as saying: "Let us be clear on this point: UASC is not directly making arrangements for LNG bunkering facilities in the Middle East or elsewhere.

"Rather, UASC is open to working closely with concerned parties including LNG producers/suppliers, Port Authorities, regulatory bodies, other government authorities, etc. in order to ensure the exchange of information to support the availability of LNG bunkering facilities at such a time that UASC and other customers would require. UASC is confident that the LNG supply and requisite infrastructure will be there to meet the demand for LNG as a marine fuel in due course.

"UASC maintains ongoing dialogue with key industry players and will continue to explore areas of cooperation related to LNG fuel and in general going forward."

The availability of LNG as a bunker fuel will be of particular interest to UASC as the company is to shortly take delivery of a fleet of LNG-ready container ships from South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).

The series of eleven 14,500-TEU and six 18,800-TEU container ships are under construction at HHI and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries (HSHI). The 17 vessels are intended to be converted to globally operate using LNG as ship fuel in the future.

Last month, DNV GL presented HHI and UASC with an approval in principle (AIP), recognizing the technical feasibility of the liquefied natual gas (LNG) fuel system design for the A14 and A18 series of container vessels.

Hinge said at SMEM 2014 this week that he expects LNG to power the newbuild vessels at some point in their lifetime, but stressed that the capital investment required for the retrofits dictates that there must be a business case for the work to be carried out.

"A precondition for the business case for LNG is a high level of confidence in the security of the supply of LNG at existing/traditional ports of call for liner shipping container vessels in the Asia – Europe/Mediterranean routings," Hinge said.

Commenting on the AIP secured from DNV GL, Hinge remarked: "The design modifications already implemented to make the vessels LNG ready and especially the approval in principle that has already been secured from DNV GL means that the workload at the time of conversion will certainly be less than it would otherwise be. These steps also confirm already that the conversion will be feasible, which is not the case for all container vessels currently in the water."