LNG

The liquefied natural gas fuel filling station network in the Nordic countries is growing with Finnish energy company Gasum opening its third station in Sweden and with plans to enter the road transport fuel market in Norway.

Gasum said the new Swedish station offers LNG and liquefied biogas for heavy-duty vehicles in the town of Orebro, where Gasum also has a biogas plant.

The Finnish natural gas company has set itself a 2019 goal of expanding its filling station network for heavy-duty vehicles to 20 stations, with 12 of the stations located in Sweden.

Gasum hopes to have a network for 50 liquefied gas filling stations for all vehicles by the early 2020s.

“Heavy road transport is increasing and today represents around 30 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions in the EU road transport sector,” Gasum claimed.

“Replacing traditional fuels with alternative low-emission fuel options is quickly becoming the norm throughout the road transport sector, as well as in other industries,” Gasum noted.

The company said customer demand for cleaner fuels for heavy-duty vehicles is increasing rapidly, which is why Gasum, together with its partners, was focusing on developing the gas infrastructure and filling station network in the region.

“For logistics (trucking) companies, LNG and LBG are a necessity in the transition to a carbon neutral future. At the same time, they enable significant savings in fuel costs,” said Mikael Antonsson, a transport director at Gasum Sweden.

According to recent European Union legislation, the average CO2 emissions of new trucks needs to be 15 percent lower by 2025 compared with 2019 and at least 30 percent lower by 2030.

Furthermore, Sweden has set a national target to reduce CO2 emissions from domestic traffic by at least 70 percent by 2030.

“With the use of LNG, CO2 emissions can be reduced by approximately 20 percent compared to traditional fuels and with LBG the reduction is as much as 85 percent,” said Gasum.

Gasum, the Finnish natural gas company, said its liquefied natural gas bunkering vessel “Coralius”, has conducted its first fuel operation in the port and refining area of Rotterdam, one of the most important logistics hubs in Europe.

Gasum said the 5,800 cubic metres capacity ship-to-ship bunkering vessel has now proved her worth in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) area.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) was supplied to the vessel “Bit Viking”.

“Finally, being able to bunker our clients in the ARA area, increases LNG availability and security for the LNG fueled fleet,” said Kimmo Rahkamo, Vice President of natural gas and LNG at Gasum.

“The amount of LNG driven vessels is growing rapidly globally, and we will definitely be part of the growth in being present where LNG is needed,” he added.

The “Coralius” has her main operation area in the North Sea and the Skagerrak area.

The Skangas LNG business is now fully under the Gasum banner and during the quarter of 2019 the bunkering vessel “Coralius” performed its 100th ship-to-ship fuel operation.

The “Coralius” delivers LNG through ship-to-ship bunkering at sea and in port.

Gasum said this has significantly increased Gasum’s flexibility and responsiveness to vessels that require LNG but are unable to visit a terminal or a port.

“We are happy with this opportunity to get LNG by ship-to-ship bunkering also in the Port of Rotterdam,” said Anders Hermansson, Technical Manager of Tarbit Shipping.

“Our vessel ‘Bit Viking’ converted to LNG already in 2011. Since then we have operated on LNG about 97 percent of the time, mainly supported by Gasum,” he added.