According to Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac), a research and energy sector, the new rules on emissions from the European Union to the shipping sector are having a dual impact on ships powered by liquefied natural gas. A effect such that the choice of the engine would become the discriminating factor for assess the commercial sustainability of the use of ships newly built. WoodMac believes that "currently the type of an engine installed on an LNG ship at the time of its construction is the most important factor in relation to the exposure to compliance costs. For a share growing global fleet, the company noted figures are backfiring on them."

According to WoodMac, the fleet of liquefied natural gas ships is dividing in two: on the one hand, modern ships equipped with engines two-stroke dual-fuel ME-GI, capable of running on both fuel and conventional and LNG, which release a smaller quantity of unburned methane and have higher compliance costs on the sea routes to Europe, and on the other hand the most with DFDE diesel-electric dual-fuel engines that are accumulating compliance costs that, in WoodMac's opinion, begin to undermine the economic convenience of their use. "The owners who have invested in DFDE vessels expecting that represented the solution for compliance with the standards - noted Itzel Torruco, research analyst LNG Freight at Wood Mackenzie - are faced with a more uncomfortable. Under EU regulations in force from 2030, a DFDE vessel on a European route is subject to sanctions that make it commercially unattractive for rental companies. The window time frame for retrofit or exit from the market is narrowing and their costs"

WoodMac explained that it is expected that by 2030 the cost of ETS EU FuelEU Maritime Regulation for the VLSFO fuel with low sulfur content will be approximately $1,256/tonne, a figure 131% higher than the cost alone of fuel, and compares with the $705/tonne envisaged by the regulatory framework of the International Maritime Organization.

In this regard, Torruco pointed out that the IMO vote on the Global Strategy for the Decarbonisation of Maritime Transport expected for next December "is the most for LNG shipping in the last ten years. If the regulatory framework of the IMO will be adopted and the EU will recognised as aligned with the Paris Agreement - explained the WoodMac researcher - the architecture for the compliance that it took the operators two years to building could be greatly simplified. In case the overlap between the EU ETS, FuelEU Maritime and the IMO regulatory framework will become the operating environment permanent. This is a very different commercial proposal."