LNG carriers speculatively ordered may struggle to find charterers as the charter-free fleet grows without any significant ramp-up in LNG supply.

More than 30 LNG carriers have been ordered speculatively since Japan's post-quake Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011, which caused the country's LNG demand to surge.

Golar LNG, which had five LNG carriers delivered last year, had to idle a few of the vessels due to lack of business.

Golar Frost, delivered in May 2014 from Samsung HI, lingered in South Korean waters until October 2014, when it and sister ship Golar Crystal sealed a charter deal from Nigeria LNG.

Cardiff Marine has also struggled to keep its speculative newbuilds employed as they were delivered in 2014. Corcovado LNG and Kita LNG were both chartered on a short-term basis by Glencore and E.ON as floating storage during the summer.

Yari LNG, the last of four speculatively ordered newbuilds, was delivered in November 2014 and loaded a cargo from Trinidad in late December. Since then, the vessel has been laden and circling in the Caribbean, awaiting sufficient price signals.

Angola LNG, which has seven ships, was unable to utilise the fleet as its production struggled to go up. As a result, those ships were deployed into the spot market.

Despite an incremental increase in cross-basin LNG trade in the second half of 2014 owing to strong demand in December, the overall weakness of Northeast Asian spot purchasing resulted in lower demand for long-distance spot charters and less demand for non-chartered LNG tonnage.

The addition of 19 new vessels to the global fleet in 2014, without an equal increase in LNG trade, resulted in further downward pressure on utilisation.

The growing number of vessels looking for work placed downward pressure on short-term charter rates, which were around US$55,000 per day by the end of 2014.