Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry is a typical example for which various business models, strategies, and affiliated interests exist, making it highly complex in terms of operations. The extended supply chain, from liquefaction to regasification, combined with multilateral contractual relationships that crossover, make efficient operation a challenging task. Considering barriers such as the volume of transactions, communication hurdles, etc., and the lack of contemporary management tools by shipping companies contrary to other industries, the paper proposes a model structure based on Business Process Modelling (BPM). The proposed BPM concept offers a holistic view of company organization and operations, as well as enables control of key performance indicators. Implementing intelligent computer systems to model an inter-organizational business environment to highlight and overcome such problems, is the ultimate goal of the study. This paper offers a coherent perspective of business process visualization across the midstream section of the LNG supply chain, including roles, tasks and resources. The research highlights commonly used business models, the contractual framework, and the physical processes. The volume of the information leads to knuckle points and dysfunctions related to time, transparency and work assignment. It is underlined that the occurring issues relate to the nature of LNG projects, business policies, safety and compliance issues, document transaction load and mishandling, disputes over SPAs, as well as to subjects of goodwill and partnership, unstandardized procedures executed empirically, and concurring office intervention. The aim of the study is the identification of the aforementioned problems that prevent an LNG shipping company from extracting the added value from its operation.

Fleet deployment is a subject many shipping companies, especially liner, have examined over the years. Various tools have integrated models of fleet deployment in order to support operational decisions and enhance fleet performance. LNG shipping companies will face over the next years a more competitive market, where the now dominant long term trade will coexist with a developing spot market. The suggested model supports strategic and tactical decisions of the company's senior management regarding the deployment of its fleet. More specifically, it could indicate the most favorable trade routes, cost-wise, between predetermined sets of liquefaction and regasification terminals. The company can then pursue contracts and arrange its business development taking into consideration the model's solutions, offering specific vessels of its fleet for long-term charters and others for spot charters. Finally, the shipping company can gain an insight of its fleet operating cost, as well as the voyage costs handled by the charterer in order to offer competitive fares, compared to its competitors, while having minor impact on its net revenues. A more intricate model, with more realistic assumptions and an effective solution algorithm for non-linear stochastic problems is probably needed in order to produce an improved model suitable for commercial application.

New environmental regulations indicate that a ‘business as usual’ approach is no longer an option towards sustainable shipping. LNG is one of the potential alternative solutions to help meet the specified IMO fuel sulphur content limits since it contains only traces of sulphur. Gas and dual fuel (DF) engines utilizing the Otto combustion process can produce NOx emissions below the IMO Tier III limits, and the C/H ratio of LNG allows a significant fuel based reduction of CO 2 emissions also. This paper discusses the challenges involved and how these were met when considering LNG as fuel in an ocean-going dry bulk carrier, with a focus on the main challenges involved with CAPEX and engine technologies and their effect on vessel design. The study was conducted by Arista Shipping in conjunction with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and Wärtsilä, and was based on a representative bulk carrier design, an 82,000 dwt Kamsarmax vessel, which was selected as the project platform due to its proven design and high cargo capacity.

During the next years the marine industry has to expect additional challenges by fluctuating fuel prices, an increased fuel diversity, extended emission regulations as well as a higher sensitivity of the public and the politics with regard to environmental protection. New built vessels will be equipped with further technologies to cope with the before mentioned challenges. But is there a possibility to make existing vessels, fit for the future – at least partly? Could be a dual-fuel (DF) retrofit with the possibility to operate on natural gas, respectively LNG, seen as a solution for this? The paper will show and discuss potential technology approaches. In all cases a further modification of the engine (e. g. compression ratio, piston bowl shape, TC specification adaption, safety technology, …) must be executed in addition. Although this improves the operation in gas mode, both the technical and economic feasibility have to be evaluated for each project. As example for such DF-retrofit project the executed conversion of a high-performance Diesel engine for Fred. Olsen Express SA, operating high-speed craft vessels on the Canary Islands, will be presented. The potentials and challenges of this conversion have been evaluated in detail before execution. The gained operational results fulfilled the expectations of the customer fully and got complete approval by the involved classification society.