Shipbroker Fearnleys sees a tight LNG shipping market in the long term driven by the new LNG capacity and fleet replacement but says there may be some fleet underutilisation to come prior to project start-ups.

But Fearnley LNG advisor Ina Bjorkum Arneson, who was speaking at the Astrup Fearnley Shipping & Energy Conference on Wednesday, said that as the market has shown this quarter: “Underutilisation is not necessarily synonymous with a soft market.”