Two if by Sea
This article discusses that ever since the Methane Pioneer sailed a cargo of liquefied natural gas from the United States to England in 1959, LNG trading in the United States has been a business of fits and starts. A chart plotting the growth of seaborne LNG depicts a flat first decade in the 1960s, 10 years’ rise in the 1970s during the first oil crunch and a flurry of Japanese activity, and then a plateau again in the 1980s on the tail of natural gas price deregulation and a bump up in domestic natural gas production. Bluewater’s concepts for offshore LNG terminals are designed to let a tanker weathervane. Moored at a single point, a weather vaning vessel swings freely to present the lowest area it can to wind and sea. The practice is common with offshore oil handling to keep ship movement from straining the floating hose that carries crude off the ship.