LNG

Peninsula, the leading independent global supplier of marine fuel in the West Mediterranean and Gibraltar, has carried out a fuel operation on the LNG-powered car carrier “Thor Highway” in the port of Gibraltar.

A wholly owned subsidiary of US energy engineers McDermott has been awarded a significant contract by the Marsa liquefied natural gas project in the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula for storage and associated piping.

McDermott, based in Houston, Texas, has confirmed that its subsidiary CB&I will build a full containment concrete LNG storage tank at the Marsa project site at Oman's Port of Sohar.

French major TotalEnergies is going ahead with a large investment in the Marsa LNG project to serve as the first LNG bunkering hub in the Middle East.

The joint venture between TotalEnergies and Oman National Oil Company will build a liquefaction plant with 1 million tonnes per annum of output.

Feed-gas will come from Oman’s Mabrouk North-East field in the onshore Block 10 area.

Contractors

The main engineering, procurement and construction contracts have been awarded to France’s Technip Energies for the LNG plant and to CB&I for the 165,000 cubic metres capacity LNG storage tank.

The LNG is primarily intended to serve the marine fuel market in the Arabian Gulf region while LNG quantities not sold as bunker fuel will be off-taken by TotalEnergies and the Omani partner.

In addition to the storage tanks contract, CB&I will provide turnkey EPC services for the tank and associated piping.

Project delivery will be executed in Oman, where CB&I has been continually present since 1968, with support from CB&I's Dubai office.

“Through this project, CB&I will contribute to the construction of one of the lowest GHG emissions intensity LNG plants ever built,” said Cesar Canals, President and Chief Executive of CB&I.

“It supports our ambition to build storage for projects that will help provide reliable energy to markets,” Canals explained.

“It will also pave the way for similar storage opportunities in the future and continues our long history of execution excellence in the Middle East, specifically Oman,” he added.

Work is expected to commence with construction activities in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The overall Marsa bunkering fuel projects is targeted for completion in 2028.

Hyundai Marine Solution Co., the South Korean ship services provider, has been awarded an order for re-liquefaction upgrades on some of the LNG carriers operated by the shipping unit of Chevron Corp.

Elengy, the operator of three terminals in Western and Southern France at Montoir-de-Bretagne, Fos Tonkin and Fos Cavaou has increased the LNG trucking capabilities at the Fos Cavaou facility located west of the Mediterranean port of Marseille.

The Managing Director of Elengy, Nelly Nicoli, inaugurated the two new tank-truck loading bays at the Fos Cavaou terminal.

The LNG fuel expansion event was also attended by René Raimondi, Mayor of the town of Fos, Hervé Martel, President of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseilles, and Régis Passerieux, Sub-Prefect of the district of Istres.

The new loading bays at Fos Cavaou now give the West Med terminal four bays with the capacity to offer 22,000 slots a year.

“LNG constitutes an immediate and effective response to the challenges of the energy transition in the road transport sector by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions,” stated Nicoli.

Commissioning

“With this commissioning, Elengy will continue with the development of its infrastructure to provide reliable and sustainable access to LNG for road transport,” added Nicoli.

“The two new bays of Fos Cavaou represented an investment of €10 million ($10.8M),” she stated.

Elengy has been expanding LNG truck-loading bays since 2013 at the Montoir-de-Bretagne and the Fos Tokin and Fos Cavaou terminals.

Over the past 10 years around 70,000 trucks have been loaded with LNG for the gradually expanding fuel market in the European Union.

Ship movements

Elengy’s three regulated terminals offer market flexibility for the unloading or loading of any type of LNG carriers as well as trans-shipment services.

The company’s LNG carrier traffic amounts to around 330 ships per annum at the three facilities.

Elengy added that during 2023 LNG had also been loaded into ISO containers at the Fos terminals for transportation by rail.

The company said it was also developing its services by investing in the development of bio-LNG made from waste to reduce the environmental footprint of the fuel.

Accelleron, the Swiss company that is a global leader in turbocharging technologies and forms part of the Sauber Group, has had its service contract renewed by the Dutch shipping company Anthony Veder, owner of a growing small-scale LNG carrier fleet.

European classification society DNV said there were a total of eight new vessels with alternative fuel propulsion ordered in November with four of them LNG-powered ships as the sector showed continued growth, helped by lower LNG bunker prices at under $890 a tonne in markets like Rotterdam to improve the shipping economics outlook.

Among the ships the other four were methanol-powered and all eight shipping were in the roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) ferry and car carrier sectors.

DNV said that so far in 2023, the platform has logged 268 new orders for alternative fuel vessels, including 112 LNG-fuelled and 152 methanol-powered ships.

The months of June and July saw the most activity related to LNG with 47 new orders combined, whereas July propelled methanol-powered vessels across the 200 ships mark with 48 new orders.

Strong market

“While November's performance may not have matched the volume of previous months, the overall enthusiasm and promising trajectory remain for both LNG and methanol,” said Martin Wold, Principal Consultant in DNV's Maritime Advisory business.

“In general, the pipeline for both announced and unannounced projects remains strong, indicating that the pace will pick up again,” Wold explained.

“However, it's worth noting that the momentum we see in the tanker and bulk segments continues to experience a more gradual acceleration,” he added.

There are currently 988 LNG-fuelled vessels on order or in operation worldwide. This list comprises 528 ships to be delivered through 2028 and 460 LNG-powered ships on the water.

About 198 of these newbuild orders are for LNG-powered containerships and a further 139 vessels are Pure Car and Truck Carriers (PCTCs), while oil and chemical tankers are in third with 48 orders and the fourth-highest segment is for crude oil tankers with 36 orders.

There are also 24 cruise ships and 18 tugs in the order book along with 11 RoPax vessels as well as single-figure numbers for car and passenger ferries, general cargo ships, offshore supply ships and fishing vessels.

Rotterdam prices

This DNV data does not include smaller inland vessels and barges that are part, for example, of the Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp (ARA) refining hub transportation in northwest Europe or trading on major European rivers.

LNG bunkering fuel costs in Rotterdam have declined steadily since the start of the year.

LNG bunkers at Rotterdam were priced in November at the start of December 2023 at $887 per tonne compared $998 at the start of November 2023 and $1,392 per tonne at the start of January.

Among other emissions-reducing fuels, the price of Ultra Low Sulfur Fuel Oil (ULSFO) at the Dutch port was less volatile than LNG.

The last ULSFO quote in Rotterdam showed only a slight rise since the start of the year to $558 per tonne at the beginning of December 2023 compared with $556 per tonne at the start of January 2023.

China LNG Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company with assets along the value chain in mainland China, has formally changed its name to China HK Power Smart Energy Group Ltd to reflect better the company’s business plans and demonstrate its commitment to future development.

Ascenz Marorka, the smart-shipping arm of LNG maritime storage technology company GTT, has signed a contract with Global Ship Lease (GSL), a leading independent owner of container vessels to roll out its shipping systems across the GSL fleet.

China LNG Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company with assets along the value chain in mainland China, has said its billionaire Chief Executive Dr. Kan Che (Billy Albert) Kin, was stepping down while the company was also changing its name to better reflect its activities.

The Korean Register, the classification society of the Republic of Korea, has awarded an Approval in Principle (AIP) for an LNG dual-fuel Very Large Gas Carrier (VLGC) jointly developed by KR and South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The award was made at the five-day Gastech energy conference and exhibition in the Asian city state of Singapore.

“Currently, the global maritime industry is grappling with the development of various counter-measures to meet strengthening greenhouse-gas regulations and there is more market interest in eco-friendly ships fueled with LNG in particular,” said KR.

The newly approved LNG dual-fuel VLGC, which has been developed in response to market needs, utilizes both marine gas oil (MGO) and LNG as fuel and incorporates two LNG fuel tanks positioned on both sides of the open deck.

HHI executed the ship’s basic design, established the layout of fuel supply pipes and the gas detection system and designed the LNG fuel tank using their technical expertise.

Verified

KR verified the safety, suitability and the regulatory compliance of the design by reviewing national and international regulations, leading to the issuance of the AIP for the LNG dual-fuel VLGC.

“KR has been focusing on the development of eco-friendly technologies relevant to LNG for several years because LNG is considered a major alternative that can meet the international regulations,” said Kim Yeontae, Executive Vice President of KR’s Technical Division.

“We will further enhance our customer support to respond to decarbonization, based on our experience and technologies acquired from joint development projects with shipyards,” Kim added.

Jeon Seungho, HHI’s Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, said he was delighted with the award.

“HHI has been working to develop eco-friendly fuel propulsion ships such as LNG using our accumulated design technologies, and we are pleased to demonstrate our technical expertise with this AIP,” Jeon explained.

Order book

“We will continue to make technological innovations for the development of eco-friendly ships,” he stated.

HHI is one of the world’s leading builder of LNG carriers as well as LNG-powered vessels at its Ulsan shipyard.

The advanced facilities give the Korean company a 10 percent share of the global market. The main HHI yard stretches over 4 kilometres along the coast and has 10 large-scale drydocks with nine huge “Goliath Cranes”.