International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 2020
regulation
was aimed to force the maritime industry to replace heavy fuel oil
with cleaner and sustainable bunkering fuels. Liquefied natural gas
(LNG) is a promising solution to achieving compliance with the established
emission standards. However, its cryogenic nature demands new infrastructures
and protocols for bunkering. Existing literature on LNG bunkering
focuses primarily on protocols, standards, and safety. In this study,
we present a comprehensive evaluation of the LNG bunkering procedure
in the world’s first national standard Technical Reference
56 (TR 56) using rigorous dynamic simulation. The bunkering time,
material costs, and emissions for truck-to-ship and ship-to-ship bunkering
are estimated. Bottom-filling operation is recommended for balancing
the pressures of two tanks and managing boiler-off gas (BOG) efficiently,
when a vapor return line is present. For leading maritime countries
such as Norway, Hong Kong, and Singapore, purging and inerting the
bunkering lines can impact emissions and material costs significantly.