Meanwhile, an American freight hauler is spearheading LNG truck rollout in California. In the Netherlands, the Gate terminal officially opened to receive the new LNG vessels in September 2011 and the sector is the only real growth area for the world's shipbuilders in the current economic climate. Rotterdam has been in the forefront of the world's ports to reward vessels which carry a Green Award, meaning they have been certified as operating with materially improved safety and environmental standards by the Green Award Foundation. The certification applies to oil tankers, chemical tankers and dry bulk freighters from 20.00 DWT and upwards plus inland navigation vessels and, more recently LNG carriers.

An increasing and regular supply of LNG will be essential to European plans to roll out not just more fueling stations for passenger and commercial vehicles but to encourage the development of the proposed bunkering network to power the next generation of cleaner, ocean-going vessels of all types.

Across the Atlantic, the strife which was witnessed a few years ago at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as Californians demanded cleaner transport methods both at sea and by road is long over, settling with the haulage unions relatively painlessly in the matter of truck pollution and its uptake of new cleaner technology.

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