Development of a Computational Model for Optimal Sourcing of LNG

Recent data indicates that there is an increasing global demand of natural gas in many countries. They want to enter into the international LNG market to meet their shortfalls. In order to minimize the transport cost the potential country needs to select the optimum strategy for importing LNG. However, for the prospective buyers of LNG, there is no such computational model available for sourcing LNG from the optimizing exporting locations at present. Therefore, the primary objective of the research is to develop a universal computational model which can be used to estimate total LNG price including transportation cost for any potential importing country for any given exporting terminal. A detailed transportation costing model was formulated to calculate the shipping cost based on the geographical locations of LNG terminals, types of shipping vessel and other shipping associated costs. A case study was performed to utilize the developed model for a prospective LNG importing country like Bangladesh.