LNG

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co. has signed a contract to construct the first liquefied natural gas bunkering vessel to serve a growing base of LNG maritime fuel customers in Western Japan.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, signed the newbuild contract with Keys Bunkering West Japan Co. comprising a group of leading shipping and utility companies.

The new Japanese bunkering vessel with 3,500 cubic metres of LNG capacity will be built at MHI’s Shimonoseki Shipyard in Yamaguchi Prefecture with completion and handover scheduled for March 2024.

“The use of LNG propulsion for ships is attracting attention as a solution for compliance with regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mitsubishi Shipbuilding.

“The planned LNG bunkering vessel will have an electric main engine, and be equipped with a dual-fuel engine capable of using both LNG and heavy oil as fuel,” added the company.

Investors

Keys Bunkering West Japan is a joint venture company established in February 2022 to supply LNG fuel for ships in the Kyushu and Setouchi regions of the country.

The parties in the venture include Kyushu Electric Power Co, Shipping company Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), a unit of trading house Itochu and Saibu Gas Co., a gas utility based in Fukuoka in Northern Kyushu.

“Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, as part of MHI Group’s strategic initiatives for the energy transition, will make use of the gas-handling technologies and experience it has accumulated from building LNG carriers,” added the statement from the Yokohama-based company.

“Through this business project involving low environmental-impact LNG fuel, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, as a maritime system integrator, aims to further the decarbonization of the marine industry,” it stated.

The Mitsubishi newbuild when operating in gas mode will provide “exceptional environmental performance” with considerably reduced emissions such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide an sulfur oxide.

The company said the bunkering ship of 4,850 gross tonnage will be 82.4 metres in length with a beam of 18.2 metres and a 4.8 metres draft.

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, the Japanese maritime classification society, has approved a project run by Tsuneishi Shipbuilding for their concept design of an LNG-powered bulk carrier.

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, known as ClassNK, granted an Approval in Principle based on its Rule Part GF regulation for ships using low-flashpoint fuels and incorporating the international code for the “Kamsarmax GF” series of vessels.

The GF in “Kamsarmax GF” stands for Gas Fuel and the vessel has an installed dual-fuel engine using LNG as the main fuel and an IMO Type C Fuel tank.

The main features of the system being incorporated by the Tsuneishi shipyard into the Kamsarmax is aimed at having a high environmental performance.

Designed to use LNG as its primary fuel, it has achieved a reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions by 40 percent or more compared with traditional fuels.

In addition, the emissions of sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) have also been greatly reduced.

“As more environmental technologies have been developed to realize a low-carbon and decarbonized society in the maritime industry, developments of LNG-fueled ships are progressed in a variety of ship types and sizes,” explained ClassNK.

The class society earlier in 2021 issued its latest survey guidelines for facilities and equipment on LNG bunkering vessels supplying fuel to LNG-powered ships at sea.

ClassNK noted that there were no established international conventions for the facilities or equipment of ships that transfer LNG to other ships at sea, and additional safety equipment has been considered individually

Based on the examinations conducted so far, ClassNK has developed guidelines complying with the requirements for additional equipment for the safe transfer of LNG.

The guidelines stipulate the layout and system design of LNG bunkering ships, fuel transfer systems, and operation, as well as class notations according to the equipment to be installed.