LNG

HAM Group of Spain, the developer of a growing European LNG filling station network and with other stations opened in South America, has inaugurated another facility on the Andalusia regional highway.

Spanish energy company Repsol said the first terminal in Spain to supply liquefied natural gas as marine fuel was growing its customer base and a second LNG bunkering facility in the same region was under development.

Brittany Ferries, the French line that links the UK with Spain and France, has signed an LNG fuel supply deal for newbuild roll-on-roll-off passenger and freight vessels connecting Portsmouth in England with two French ports.

May 10 (LNGJ) - HAM Group of Spain, the developer of a growing European LNG filling station network, is also expanding into South America with a second LNG service station in Chile. HAM Chile will be in charge of the engineering process of the LNG station as part of a joint venture with regional operator Empresas Lipigas. The existing LNG station is located at the fuelling base of trucking company Transportes San Gabriel, in Linares, 300 kilometres south of the Chilean capital Santiago.

   HAM said the second station would be located in Tabolango in the Valparaíso region and about 10 kilometres from Concón, a coastal city in central Chile and will open in June. “This new station will connect the regions of Valparaíso and Maule through a means of transport with cleaner energy. Our objective of having a green transport corridor at the national level in Chile is advancing rapidly,” said Esteban Rodríguez, Manager of LNG and Biofuels at Lipigas.

Grupo Ham of Spain has opened its 100th liquefied natural gas filling station and now operates around 25 percent of existing facilities in Europe for LNG-powered trucks and other vehicles.

The Ham group said the latest LNG filling station was opened in Saint Quentin Fallavier in southeast France, reaffirming its leading role in the vehicular natural gas sector in the European Union and elsewhere.

The company’s network of LNG and compressed natural gas (CNG) facilities is expanding in a growing number of countries with more than 30 in Spain and the others spread around the EU with most of them located in Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.

Ham has also established an LNG-CNG foothold in South America with filling stations in Chile and Peru.

“A report from the Association of Natural Gas and Biogas Vehicles, noted that in Europe there are 400 service stations that allow LNG refuelling and on one in four of facilities have been designed, built and commissioned by HAM, many of them being owned by us and forming part our network of service stations,” said the company.

Ham has also started developing networks in the newer entrants to the EU such as the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Slovakia, as well as non-EU countries like the UK and Switzerland.

“HAM as a trucking company as well was a pioneer in Spain in 2000 when it added to its fleet of 10 trucks, acquired in the US and powered by LNG, taking on a major environmental challenge with the aim of reducing polluting emissions and also building the first vehicular LNG plant in Europe for the refuelling of these vehicles,” explained the Barcelona-based company.

“Later, in 2009 we designed and built the first public vehicular natural gas service station in Spain, located in Abrera, Barcelona,” it added.

“We continue to bet on Vehicular Natural Gas, a rapidly developing market with great potential to achieve the decarbonisation of road transport,” stated Ham.

The company is also developing new concepts of fixed and mobile service stations, allowing easier expansion of the network.

Ham is also committed to adopting bio-LNG made from waste and will make more of it available over time.

“At Grupo HAM we continue to work and innovate, always working in direct contact with our customers, to offer the best products and services that adapt to their real energy needs,” declared the company.

Cartagena, the LNG import terminal in southeast Spain, has hosted the Mediterranean's first LNG bunkering operation with emissions offsets for a Swedish LNG-powered tanker.

Spanish energy company Repsol organised the fuelling of the Swedish-flagged “Fure Vinga” with 420 cubic metres of LNG.

The Repsol operation was in cooperation with the Port Authority of Cartagena and Enagás, operator of the Cartagena import terminal.

“The uniqueness of the operation is that this is the first time that Repsol, as a supplier of LNG, has guaranteed the compensation of the total CO2 emissions associated with the consumption of this LNG,” said the company.

The re-fuelled ship, the “Fure Vinga”, is owned by the shipping company Furetank Rederi, headquartered in Donsö in Sweden.

This chemical tanker had arrived in Cartagena from China and was scheduled to continue to its ultimate destination of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

“The operation, which lasted approximately four hours, was carried out using the Enagás facilities in the port of Cartagena,” said Repsol.

Repsol noted that its bunkering was the first supply of this kind by a multi-energy company with emissions compensation through the purchase of CO2 credits (VERs) in the Voluntary Carbon Market.

Repsol is also adding direct supply of LNG from the terminal in Cartagena to its network in Spain.

“With this operation that was the first of its kind after a recent change in the Spanish gas system regulation promoting this type of supply, Spanish ports are now able to compete with other European ports,” said Repsol.

The method previously mostly used by Repsol was supplying the bunkering fuel from LNG trucks on the quayside.

The company added that it was increasing its LNG fuel capabilities at the northwest Spanish ports of Bilbao and Santander.

HAM Group, the Spanish natural gas and LNG fuel and transportation company, has widened its filling station network for trucks and automobiles by opening a new facility in province of Albacete, a key crossroads between the centre and the east of the Iberian Peninsula.

Jan 14 (LNGJ) - HAM Group of Spain, an LNG and compressed natural gas fuel and bunkering services firm, said it acquired FNX Liquid Natural Gas, a small-scale natural gas liquefaction company based in the Basque company of northwest Spain.  

   FNX focuses on the design, manufacturing and installation of mini  liquefaction plants, also including equipment for processing natural gas from wells and other sources. FNX has its own manufacturing facilities in the North of Spain for the design, construction and design of equipment. 

“Specialized in the manufacture of equipment for liquefaction, FNX offers a wide range of project management services, being able to carry out the complete management of the customer’s facility, if requested,” said HAM.

Three Iberian Peninsula companies have opened a liquefied natural gas fuel station at the Port of Barcelona, offering an alternative and cleaner fuel for land transport of goods around the northeast Spanish port.

Reganosa, the owner of the Mugardos liquefied natural gas import terminal at the port of El Ferrol in northwest Spain, said it supplied fuel for the first experimental European passenger train locomotive to be powered by LNG.