The World’s Biggest Floating Natural Gas Terminal Can’t Get Steady Work

Nobody will ever accuse shipper Mitsui O.S.K. Lines of not thinking big. Its new 40 billion yen ($394 million) floating liquid natural gas terminal, scheduled for delivery as early as the end of this year, is longer than three football fields and capable of storing enough LNG to power all of Sweden for a day. That heft was supposed to be one of its biggest selling points, allowing customers to quickly sail in a complete complex to store and transform LNG back into gaseous fuel at a fraction of the cost of building a billion-dollar gas terminal on land.

But since the vessel was ordered three years ago from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, supplies of onshore gas have risen, and the number of smaller competing ships has grown—lowering ship-leasing rates and dimming the appeal of the floating megafactory. That means the gas complex may sit idle after delivery.