Bunker specialist Barents NaturGass has opened Norway's largest LNG bunkering facility, at Polarbase in Hammerfest.
The facility has storage capacity of 1,250 cubic meters and a maximum transfer rate of 90 tonnes per hour.
LNG offers best long distance solution
“This bunkering facility allows easy and efficient access to LNG - a fuel with very good environmental characteristics - for vessels in traffic along the Norwegian coast, in the Barents Sea or through the Northern Sea route,” a spokesperson for Barents NaturGass said.
Barents NaturGass is a supplier of fuel and small-scale LNG solutions throughout the north of Scandinavia and delivers LNG for bunkering of ships, vessels, vehicles and buses as well as for industrial and mining projects.
“We believe LNG will be increasingly important as the low-emission fuel for ships in the future. Battery operation may be useful for very short and defined ferry routes, but for vessels that sail over slightly longer distances, LNG is still the best solution, probably in combination with bio-LNG,” Gudrun B. Rollefsen, managing director of Barents NaturGass, said.
Coastal fuelling network driven by shipping demand
BNG currently operates two other LNG bunkering facilities in Nordland, as well as other facilities in the south of Norway, forming an LNG distribution network along the Norwegian coast.
“The shipping sector has called for bunkering infrastructure to make the transition to LNG fuelled vessels. With our new facility in Hammerfest, Barents NaturGass meets such a need,” Rollefsen added.
The Polarbase facility was opened by the Norwegian minister for Petroleum and Energy, Terje Søviknes and facility's expansion will enable BNG to bunker 1,000 cubic meters of LNG in a single operation.
“We have a great potential to make use of this gas… both at sea, in industry and for land-based heavy industry. It is also positive from an environmental perspective,” Søviknes said.
