Rank the owners of the world’s LNG carriers by number of operating ships and a clear top of the table appears. In the tracker’s June 2026 release it reads:
| Owner | Operating vessels | Of which jointly owned |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsui O.S.K. Lines | 95 | 60 |
| NYK Line | 66 | 44 |
| Nakilat | 62 | 37 |
| Maran Gas Maritime | 52 | 7 |
| Seapeak | 44 | 19 |
| Knutsen OAS | 35 | 0 |
| K Line | 34 | 27 |
The full table is on the fleet owner ranking.
Why the last column matters
Global Energy Monitor lists the owners of each vessel without ownership percentages. When a ship has two listed owners, there is no honest way to say how it is split, so the ranking credits it in full to each of them. It is counted once for every name on it.
That is why the right-hand column exists. Of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines’ 95 ships, 60 have at least one other listed owner. For NYK the figure is 44 of 66, and for K Line 27 of 34. Knutsen has none.
The consequence is simple and easy to forget: the owners’ figures overlap and must never be added. Two owners each showing 20 ships may be sharing the same 20.
Owner is not operator
The ranking uses the owner role only. A shipowner often gives the day-to-day running of a vessel to a separate operator or ship manager, and that relationship is different and not measured here. The list of owners also includes non-shipping names: JP Morgan appears eleventh, with 25 operating vessels, none of them jointly owned in this data. The tracker lists it as an owner; it is not a shipping line, and reading it as one would be a mistake. Ownership, parents and why they differ sets out how these roles are separate in the tracker.
Size, not just count
Counting ships treats a small vessel and a large one as equal. Adding capacity shows something else. Nakilat’s 62 ships total 12.9 million cubic metres, an average of about 208,000 each. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines’ 95 ships total 15.5 million, an average of about 164,000. Nakilat is third by count, but its fleet is larger in capacity than NYK’s despite having fewer ships, because its ships are on average bigger. The size classes behind that difference are covered in ship classes.
Every company named here has a page in the company directory, with its vessels listed.