Cruiseship operator Carnival Corp is in talks with a number of LNG suppliers for its first US-based LNG-fuelled newbuildings and will likely require a bunker vessel to serve the fleet.

Tom Strang, senior vice-president maritime affairs at Carnival, explains to TradeWinds that no deployment details have been announced yet for the first two 183,200-gt, 5,000-passenger ships being built for the US market.

He says there are a number of existing and other LNG suppliers “coming to the table”.

Strang says the LNG supply chain is key to deciding on a solution for fuelling these vessels, adding that the company expects that an LNG bunker vessel will be required to serve these ships.

“We are trying to understand what the [US] market will look like,” he told delegates to IQPC’s LNG Bunkering Summit, explaining the lack of LNG supply in the company’s traditional port calls in this region. “We need to look at the Jones Act and Caribbean [LNG] supply,” he added.

Carnival is already getting its first taste of LNG bunkering with two ships for its AIDA Cruises brand. Neither of these vessels has LNG storage onboard.

The first of these, the 124,500-gt AIDAprima (built 2016), operates in northern Europe and is supplied with LNG by energy major Shell. The bunkers are mainly delivered by lorry from the Gate LNG terminal in Rotterdam.

A sistership, the AIDAperla, delivers in the middle of this year and will sail in the western Mediterranean region. Strang says that as yet no LNG supply contract has been signed for this vessel.

Strang adds that he would like to supply LNG bunkers to the vessel in Italy but there are no LNG truck supply stations available there and the overall economics for trucking in LNG from other countries is not great.

Carnival has begun a study to look at retrofitting a storage tank onto the AIDAperla in a bid to solve this problem, Strang says, adding that the company might apply for European Union funding for this project.

These two vessels are forerunners of Carnival’s next generation of cruiseship newbuildings, which have been designed to sail on LNG.

The company is building seven LNG-fuelled newbuildings in Germany. The first of these — for the company’s AIDA brand — delivers at the end of 2018 with a second to follow for Costa Cruises.

Carnival has signed an agreement with Shell to provide LNG for both vessels for north-west Europe and the western Mediterranean.

Strang says each of these seven newbuildings — the largest cruise vessels the company has built to date — will be fitted with three Type-C LNG fuel tanks.

The tank capacity is based on a bi-weekly bunkering schedule within standard port calls allowing a maximum of about six hours for re-fuelling operations. The first LNG tank fill will be the responsibility of the shipyard.

Each vessel will require about 30,000 tonnes of LNG per year. “That’s nothing for the LNG sector but it is big for us,” Strang said.

He urges more co-operation between LNG bunker suppliers and consumers and for port authorities to standardise LNG bunkering procedures. “We need aggregation,” he said. “We need to work together.”