Long time coming: Hong Kong imports first LNG, views gas as transition fuel

Hong Kong has joined the LNG importers’ club. On 14 June, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) announced that the world’s largest floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the 263,000-cm Bauhinia Spirit, had received the city’s first LNG cargo from Chinese NOC PetroChina a month earlier. The arrival of this commissioning cargo was a milestone for Hong Kong that has been two decades in the making and comes as part of a broader effort to achieve the city’s climate goals through coal-to-gas switching. The project will underpin its shift to use more gas to fuel its power generation fleet amid limited potential for renewables, while underscoring a growing sense in the Asia Pacific region that gas, even at a time of price volatility, will be a critical transition fuel in its decarbonisation drive.