LNG

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.

CMA CGM, the French containership group with a growing proportion of vessels powered by liquefied natural gas, has informed its customers that the severe drought and further transit restrictions affecting the Panama Canal have taken a “severe toll” on operations so that consequently CMA CGM prices will have to be increased.

TotalEnergies Marine Fuels, the French major’s bunkering unit, has forecast that the liquefied natural gas market would expand over the next four years, reaching 10 million tonnes per annum of bunker volumes by 2025.

The TotalEnergies bunkering subsidiary came to the conclusion in a 40-page report on the maritime fuel market that offers shippping operators and owners advice on how to navigate the energy transition.

TotalEnergies Marine Fuels looks at the key drivers shaping the move to the decarbonization of shipping and timelines motivating the transition as well as required investments.

“Through our insights, knowledge and thinking, we hope to help develop a greater understanding of the key areas and considerations ship owners and operators will need to address, as they move towards tomorrow’s marine fuels landscape,” declared Jérôme Leprince-Ringuet, Vice-President Marine Fuels at TotalEnergies.

TotalEnergies also forecasts the LNG bunkering market would represent 10 percent of the entire bunkering market by 2030.

The Paris-based company noted that there were about 245 LNG-powered ships currently in operation and the market is expanding, given the number of newbuild orders for LNG-powered vessel.

Bunkering assets

The report added that there were now 26 LNG bunkering vessels in operation globally and the fleet would grow to 43 units offering an aggregated capacity of between 7 MTPA to 8 MTPA by early 2024 and up to 10 MTPA by 2025.

TotalEnergies deployed its first chartered LNG bunkering vessel in 2020. The “Gas Agility” has 18,600 cubic metres capacity and offers services around the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

The French company’s bunkering business partner is the Japanese shipping line, Mitsui OSK Lines.

The sister ship, the “Gas Vitality”, will be based at the Port of Marseille-Fos on the Mediterranean to serve the Marseille-based containerships operator CMA CGM and vessels from MSC Cruises calling at the French port.

The  “Gas Vitality” was launched by the Chinese shipyard of Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding at the end of April 2021.

TotalEnergies shares the use of a third bunker vessel in the Asian port of Singapore, where the company won a licence for LNG bunkering in February 2021.

The TotalEnergies bunkering licence from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore allows the supply of LNG in the Port from 2022.

French maritime storage technology company GTT has been chosen to design the fuel tanks of 12 new liquefied natural gas-powered container vessels ordered from China by the global CMA CGM shipping group based in the French port of Marseille.

French oil and gas major Total said it completed the first ship-to-containership liquefied natural gas bunkering operation in France’s waters at the Channel port of Dunkirk.