The General Office of the Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has recently released the Opinions on Deeply Promoting the Use of Liquefied Natural Gas in the Water Transport Industry (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek opinions from the entities concerned by August 20, 2018.
The Draft for Comment proposes to actively advance the building of liquefied natural gas (LNG) wharfs in coastal areas, particularly in the Circum-Bohai Sea Region, accelerate the building of inland LNG wharfs, enhance the LNG-based uploading and transferring capacity, boost the LNG-based water transport capacity, and steadily promote the development of maritime floating facilities for LNG receipt and storage, such as the floating storage regasification unit (FSRU). In addition, the Draft for Comment requires that in coastal areas, attention shall be paid to developing the mobile fueling and port tank-car fueling and exploring the development of floating fueling; in inland areas, the wharf-boat-based fueling and the shore-boat-based fueling shall be developed in priority, and the mobile fueling could be developed on a complementary basis. Furthermore, the Draft for Comment clearly specifies that, efforts in newly building, or rebuilding through updating the complete dynamic system, inland vessels, and other vessels involved in river-ocean non-stop transporting business, which are mainly powered by LNG, are supported, and the program of substituting for clean energy, such as LNG, will be accelerated in certain river basins, including Beijing-Hangzhou Canal and arteries of the Yangtze River.