Second LNG Super Tanker Arrives in UK to Help with Natural Gas Shortage

Due to unseasonably cold weather the UK has seen high demand for natural gas, far higher than anything expected, and the truth is that the country was not prepared.

The dwindling supplies form the North Sea were unable to meet the high demand, and storage reserves reached dangerously low levels, leading some to suggest that the UK may run out of gas altogether within days. The government denied these reports and began frantically searching for alternative supplies to meet the demand.

Supplies were not hard to come by as the shortage had caused spot prices in the UK increase to some of the highest in the world, attracting tankers from around the world.

Related article: UK could Run Out of Natural Gas by April

A giant tanker, the Zarga, has docked at Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire to unload its cargo of LNG. It is the second such tanker to have been diverted to Britain in the last couple of days in search of the high prices that can be charged there. The Mekaines docked at Kent on Sunday. The vessels carried a combined total of more than 500,000 cubic metres of LNG, enough to meet the entire UKs demand for 12 hours.

The Zarga, one of Qatar’s Q-max tankers, the largest LNG tankers in the world at 344metres long, set sail in search of the highest prices on the market, which currently happens to be in the UK.

This diagram from the BBC shows that route taken by the Zarga from Qatar to Wales, and then the distribution of the natural gas around the UK.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com