✪ Member briefing: Renewable Methane & Bio-LNG in Global Shipping
Jon Hughes investigates the financials that make biomethane a core maritime fuel transition pathway and development opportunity.
Shipping is undergoing a structural fuel transition, driven by EU regulation, International Maritime Organisation (IMO) decarbonisation targets and growing customer demand for low-carbon transport. These forces are reshaping fleet investment, fuel procurement strategies and port infrastructure development worldwide.
Renewable methane is emerging as the most practical, scalable and cost-effective decarbonisation route for shipping, leveraging existing LNG vessels and global bunkering infrastructure. Renewable methane comprises biomethane or liquid biomethane (bio-LNG) and synthetic methane (e-methane / e-LNG). In this document, we use bio-LNG and e-methane.
Campaign group for liquid natural gas (LNG) shipping Sea-LNG in their annual report View from the Bridge 2026 says we are entering the ‘era of methanation’.
“2025 is the year the methane decarbonisation pathway became a clear runway. The year our advocacy for LNG as a fuel in transition from fossil LNG through liquefied biomethane (bio-LNG) to liquefied e-methane took off, with record amounts of [bio-LNG] powering global shipping today and growing strongly into the future,” says Steve Esau, COO, Sea-LNG.
This of course represents a key opportunity for biomethane producers and developers. If shipping follows a bio-LNG blending pathway to comply with the IMO and FuelEU regulations, global biomethane demand must grow at ~30% CAGR this decade, reaching 6–12 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2030 and 20–40 bcm by 2035 - creating one of the largest, fastest-growing demand pools in the global bioenergy system. Hence forecasts assume by the end of the decade e-methane will be complementing bio-LNG as maritime fuel.
Here we consider the key drivers making biomethane a core maritime fuel transition pathway and development opportunity.
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