LNG

Sea-LNG, the UK-registered non-profit industry foundation committed to furthering the use of LNG as a cleaner and superior maritime fuel, has urged an end to the misrepresentation of the status of methane-slip risks delaying the build-out of a cleaner LNG-powered fleet.

Chevron Shipping Company, which has a fleet of more than 30 tankers including 10 LNG carriers as the transportation arm of Chevron Corp., said it had joined the Sea Cargo Charter, a benchmark initiative for responsible shipping activities and transparent reporting as part of the International Maritime Organization’s efforts to reduce emissions, especially in ports.

US company Pilot LNG, the developer of the Galveston LNG Bunker Port (GLBP) project in Texas, awarded the front-end engineering and design contract for marine infrastructure to W.F. Baird Associates.

“It was imperative that the company selected to carry out the FEED works for the Galveston LNG Bunker Port has an excellent track record of successfully executing marine terminal projects,” said Pilot Chief Executive Jonathan Cook.

“Our selection of Baird is in recognition of their unparalleled expertise and commitment to engineering and designing safe, reliable and efficient projects and we are happy to continue to work with Baird as a preferred partner in GLBP,” added Cook.

Pilot has already filed regulatory applications with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and other relevant regulatory agencies, possibly paving the way for a final investment decision in 2022.

According to the company, the main LNG storage facilities are expected to be located on Pelican Island in Galveston County in Texas.

Regulations

As international regulators tighten emissions standards, the maritime industry is increasingly turning towards LNG as the marine fuel of choice due to its significantly lower emissions profile and cost competitiveness.

Analysts said the Galveston Bay area was an ideal location to add LNG bunkering infrastructure.

It has more than 10,500 deep-water vessel visits per annum and over 133,000 tug/tow movements on the Houston Ship Channel, as well as being the nation’s fourth busiest cruise terminal.

“To further mitigate operational impacts, Pilot has chosen to utilize electric drives powered by electricity sourced 100 percent from Texas renewable energy, eliminating virtually all operating emissions related to the facility and likely making the GLBP project one of the greenest facilities of its type anywhere in the world,” explained Pilot LNG.

Baird will provide a variety of services to Pilot LNG, including design of marine structures, metocean modelling including storm surge and tidal currents, dredging design and dredged material placement analysis.

Pilot LNG said that Baird’s Houston office would lead the assessment with support from the company’s other North American and international offices.

“The GLBP project will provide one of the US’s largest industrial port complexes, comprising the ports of Houston, Galveston, and Texas City, with the infrastructure needed to supply clean fuel to the growing global LNG bunker market,” added Pilot LNG.

The London-based Baltic Exchange is starting its first full week of issuing independent indices for liquified natural gas propulsion fuel, based on vessels burning LNG rather than marine fuel oil or marine gas oil as their primary fuel.

Germany has extended the deadline for grants for equipping and retrofitting seagoing vessels to use LNG as marine fuel for another year, while LNG trucks on German motorways will continue to be except from paying tolls.

The ferry company of the Canadian province of British Columbia, BC Ferries, is among the leaders in the sector globally for LNG-powered vessels and another of its newbuilds has just entered the water at the Polish Remontowa Shipyard in the Baltic port of Gdansk.

The Salish Class vessel is the fourth on order and will operate around the port city of Vancouver.

BC Ferries said that unnamed vessel was still in the process of being constructed and finished and was not expected to be ready to commence sea trials off the Baltic coast during late 2021 before making its way to the Pacific Coast of Canada.

“Following successful sea trials, the vessel will make the 10,440 nautical mile journey from Gdansk to British Columbia in early 2022 for final preparations,” said BC Ferries.

The new 107-metre-long vessel will be used to serve the Southern Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland from 2022.

The vessel’s entry into service would retire the 1965-built and diesel-fuelled “Mayne Queen”.

The new LNG-powered ferry will have the capacity to carry at least 138 vehicles and up to 600 passengers and crew.

BC Ferries noted that it had issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for the construction of the series vessels to leading shipyards in Canada and around the world in July 2018.

Canadian shipyards were invited to participate in the competitive bidding process.

“BC Ferries received responses from 16 international shipyards and short-listed three shipyards to proceed to the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage. No Canadian companies submitted a bid,” it added.

The dual-fuel ferries are capable of running on LNG or ultra-low sulphur diesel.

“Using primarily LNG to fuel the new ship will result in reduced emissions and reduced costs for BC Ferries,” stated the company.

The new ferries were part of the company’s move towards a sustainable future by adopting LNG.

“In partnership with the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, BC Ferries will commission an artist to create designs for the new Salish Class vessel,” it added.

BC Ferries had announced the successful launch of its third battery electric-hybrid Island Class vessel in October 2020 at the Damen Shipyard in Galati in Romania.

Following successful sea trials, the vessel will make its way to Point Hope Maritime in the BC capital of Victoria in the third quarter of 2021 for final preparations.

The yet-to-be named ship is the fourth in a series of six Island Class vessels joining the BC Ferries fleet, and the second assigned to the Campbell River -Quadra Island route.

Two-ship service is scheduled to begin on the route in 2022, replacing the larger “Powell River Queen”.

Endesa, the largest power company in Spain and the second-largest natural gas operator, has launched a project to expand its port terminal in Los Barrios in the Port of Algeciras to capture the liquefied natural gas bunkering business around Cádiz and in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Avenir LNG Ltd, a company owned by Norwegian shipping and infrastructure companies, has delivered its first dual-purpose liquefied natural gas bunkering and supply vessel (LBV), the “Avenir Advantage”, to the Future Horizon joint venture comprising Malaysia’s MISC Group and Avenir.

The ship was constructed by Keppel Offshore and Marine at the Nantong Shipyard in China’s eastern Jiangsu province.

“With the delivery of the ‘Avenir Advantage’, Future Horizon is the first dedicated LBV commercial operator in Southeast Asia,” said Avenir

Additionally, Malaysian energy company Petronas has chartered the “Avenir Advantage” from Future Horizon for a period of three years.

“Following her maiden voyage from China, the ‘Avenir Advantage’ has successfully completed the commissioning of the LNG re-loading equipment on the ‘FSU Tenaga Satu’ and the first LNG bunkering of the ‘SIEM Aristotle’ car carrier,” explained Avenir

The “Avenir Advantage” will supply the region’s LNG-fuelled vessels and small-scale LNG projects.

“We are very proud to deliver the first dedicated LNG bunker vessel in Southeast Asia,” said Milorad Doljanin, Chief Executive of Avenir

“With the backing of Petronas’s LNG supply infrastructure, LNG is undeniably a reliable and cost-effective solution to meeting the sulphur cap regulations set by the International Maritime Organization in 2020,” added Doljanin.

“Further to the provision of LNG as a bunker fuel, the delivery of the ‘Avenir Advantage’ means that Petronas now has the infrastructure in place to support the rapid deployment of small-scale supply chains and we are proud to be working with Petronas as envisaged under our previously announced arrangements,” he explained

Avenir LNG is a joint venture owned by London-based Norwegian shipping and storage company Stolt-Nielsen and its peer fleet owners and project companies, Höegh LNG and Golar LNG.

The “Avenir Advantage” is the first of two ships ordered from the Keppel Nantong shipyard.

Each vessel has a cargo capacity of 7,500 cubic metres capacity with two Type-C storage tanks.

Stolt-Nielsen started up small-scale LNG sector firm Avenir in 2015 and its two newer investors, Golar and Höegh, each have 22.5 percent of Avenir to Stolt-Nielsen’s 45 percent.

The experienced shipping partners of Avenir are aiming to build up the market in small-scale LNG supply to off-grid industry for power generation and transportation fuel, as well as providing infrastructure to support the development of LNG as a marine fuel.

Avenir additionally has an 80 percent stake in a small-scale LNG import project company Higas on the Italian island of Sardinia, while the local partners are Gas & Heat and CPL Concordia, each holding 10 percent of the Sardinia venture.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French technology firm and designer of liquefied natural gas storage tanks, has acquired another French firm specializing in the assembly of electrolysers for the production of green hydrogen, a future fuel to rival LNG.

The Korean Register, the South Korean maritime classification society, said it had established a new LNG Fuel and Bunkering Simulation Center to help the nation acquire more expertise in the shipping sector.