ISO containers: Unsung hero of the LNG business?

The humble ISO container has for a while now been a small but nimble actor on the LNG business stage. As Container xChange, the Hamburg-based online marketplace for container logistics, puts it, LNG ISO containers are used in many countries “to optimise energy supply chains and obtain LNG for use in cities and remote locations.” Ideal when part of an intermodal supply solution, they have helped open new outlets to LNG and enabled many off-grid industrial and small-scale power consumers switch from oil and coal to natural gas.

LNG-hungry China has, unsurprisingly, been a big driver in the growth of the LNG ISO container market, as this mode of supply has helped top up its gas demand – a niche need which suppliers, such as Malaysia’s Petronas and Canada’s FortisBC, but also terminal operators in Japan and South Korea, have been more than happy to serve. At the same time, ISO containers have in recent years been the means through which LNG has first reached a handful of countries around the world, including Cambodia, Guyana and South Africa.