A new liquefied natural gas (LNG)-bunkering terminal may become operational at South Korea's Busan New Port by 2020.
South Korean shipping company Polaris Shipping will reportedly invest $500 million (KRW 600 billion) to construct the facility.
According to IHS, the terminal will occupy a 185,700 m² site in Busan New Port and is to have four berths and two LNG tanks. Busan Port Authority and Busan Regional Oceans & Fisheries Administration had received a business proposal from Polaris Shipping and sought approval from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.
According to Busan New Container Terminal Co., Ltd. (BNCT), the newest container terminal in Busan, continues to grow rapidly welcoming 7 new large services in the last 6 months.
These services bring 1 million TEU throughput annually to Busan’s New Port and include five Ocean3 Alliance services plus MSC’s New Falcon and CMA CGM’s CIMEX1 service.
Since opening in January 2012, BNCT has achieved steep volume growth every year.
In its 1st year of operation BNCT handled 0.5 million TEU increasing by 139% to over 1.2 million TEU in 2013 and jumping 20% to over 1.4 million TEU in 2014.
Because of these new services, BNCT is on track to increase at an even quicker pace this year compared to 2014.
Busan Port also expects that if usage of the Northern Sea Route grows, it would facilitate more LNG imports from Russia, giving it an edge over Singapore, which is currently the world's biggest bunkering port by sales volumes.