French terminal Dunkirk to offer truck-loading service from Q1 ‘19

LONDON (ICIS)–The northwest European LNG truck-loading sector continues to grow at pace, with all four of France’s LNG terminals set to be offering truck-loading service by the beginning of next year.

France’s Dunkirk LNG terminal will begin offering LNG truck-loading services in the first quarter of 2019, it confirmed on Wednesday.

This is in addition to southern France’s Fos Cavaou LNG terminal, which will also start offering 40 truck-loading slots per day in the first quarter, according to a statement by operator Elengy on 8 October.

The country’s other terminals, Fos Tonkin and Montoir, which are also both operated by Elengy, have been offering the service for a some years now. This means that from 2019, France will be able to offer more than 70 truck-loading slots per day at its four terminals.

Dunkirk’s first loading bay will allow at least 3,000 trucks a year to load. Around one third of this capacity has already been sold to one shipper.

An open season will be launched at the beginning of next year to commercialize the rest of the capacity, a Dunkirk spokeswoman said.

“We expect a lot of trucks loading for the moment in other terminals to come and load at Dunkirk terminal. We have room for two additional bays that could be commissioned later on after this one, depending on market needs,” the spokeswoman said.

France was one of the first movers in the truck-loading sector, so LNG loaded there already supplies businesses not just in France but also in neighbouring countries, such as Italy. The comments allude to a level of competition that is said to be developing between terminals not just in France, but also in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Zeebrugge doubles truck capacity

In a related development, Belgium’s Zeebrugge has added a second truck-loading bay.

“We took an FID [final investment decision] last year to build a new truck-loading bay, which will be operational [at the end of October],” a spokesman for Belgian infrastructure company Fluxys, which is also a shareholder in the Dunkirk LNG terminal, said on 23 October.

“Thanks to this investment, the number of slots we can offer to the market will be doubled on a yearly basis, i.e. the yearly capacity will be 8,000 slots instead of 4,000. Concretely, we expect an increase in terms of monthly truck-loading operations from November 2018 onwards,” the spokesman said.

At a conference in London this week, delegates were bullish on the health of the LNG truck-loading sector. Thanks to new engines technologies, a rapidly developing network and more business-friendly regulations, road-going LNG consumption arguably offered as strong if not stronger an outlook for LNG as transport fuel as the marine bunkering sector, delegates at LNGgc told ICIS.

At Zeebrugge, for example, a total of 304GWh – around one third of a standard-sized LNG tanker – has been loaded onto trucks in the year to mid-October, of which Fluxys estimates only around 10% makes its way into the bunkering sector.