Singapore Opens Licensing for Up to Two LNG Floating Storage Units

Up to two LNG floating storage units (FSUs) — each holding at least 130,000 cubic metres — will be licensed into Singapore's anchorages under a new application window opened by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). The regulator is deliberately building redundancy into a bunkering (ship-to-ship fuel supply) network that keeps growing.

MPA says the initiative aims to expand LNG bunkering capacity and strengthen supply resilience. Translation: Singapore wants more storage closer to its anchorage customers, and it wants that storage open to competitors, not locked up by whichever licensee wins a licence.

The move follows the award of eight new LNG bunker supplier licences in July 2026. That expansion increased the pool of suppliers. Floating storage is the next constraint. More sellers without more tanks simply queue the same molecules through the same limited shore infrastructure. MPA appears to recognise that arithmetic.

Who can apply, and on what terms?

Applications are open to existing LNG bunker licensees, according to MPA. Those licensees may partner with third-party terminal operators to supply storage and operational expertise. That structure widens the field without lowering the entry bar — the licensee still fronts the application.

The hard requirements are specific:

• Applicants must own or charter at least one FSU with minimum storage capacity of 130,000 cubic metres.
• The vessel must be registered with the Singapore Registry of Ships.
• Most of each unit's storage capacity must be allocated to LNG bunkering.
• A minimum portion must be made available to other LNG bunker suppliers on open-access terms.
• Vessels must comply with MPA's safety and operational requirements.
• Operators must disclose their intended maximum fees for LNG reloading services upfront.

That fee-disclosure clause is the quiet intervention here. It caps the pricing power an FSU operator could otherwise exercise over rival suppliers dependent on its open-access capacity. Takeaway: MPA wants competition on the water, not a toll booth on it.

Each licence runs five years. That is long enough to amortise a charter, short enough for MPA to revisit terms if the market shifts.

What about bio-LNG and e-LNG?

The FSUs must hold International Sustainability and Carbon Certification European Union (ISCC-EU) certification — the EU-recognised scheme verifying fuel sustainability claims — to handle bio-LNG and e-LNG. MPA frames this as supporting future supply of the lower-emission alternatives.

Note the framing. This is a requirement to be certified to handle those fuels, not evidence that bio-LNG or e-LNG demand exists in Singapore bunker calls today. The volumes are, so far, a promise. The certification is the hedge against that promise materialising later.

Singapore has consistently positioned itself ahead of fuel-transition demand, sometimes years ahead of actual offtake. The ISCC-EU condition fits that pattern: cheap to impose now, expensive to retrofit later. One long sentence for the record: whether the certified capacity gets used for compliant fuels or sits idle depends on shipping's decarbonisation timeline, which no port authority controls.

What happens next?

MPA will hold an applicant briefing on December 4, 2026. Applications close at 5 p.m. on February 4, 2027. Existing licensees now have roughly two months to line up tonnage, registry flags and terminal partners.

The watch items are three. First, who applies — a broad field signals confidence in LNG bunkering demand; a thin field does not. Second, what maximum reloading fees applicants disclose, since that number will shape open-access economics for the whole supplier pool. Third, whether the eight July licence holders convert licences into lifted volumes, the metric MPA did not address in announcing this window. Capacity licensed is not fuel delivered, and Singapore's bunkering ambition will ultimately be measured at the manifold.