LNG

Seatrium Limited of Singapore, formerly Sembcorp Marine Ltd and the Dutch family-owned dredging and shipping company Van Oord, marked the successful completion and delivery of the “Vox Alexia”, Van Oord's third dual-fuel LNG-powered Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD), during a sailaway event in the Asian city state.

The delivery of the “Vox Alexia”, the final unit of a series of three dual-fuel LNG-powered dredgers, adds to the earlier completions of the first and second newbuilds “Vox Ariane” and “Vox Apolonia” delivered in April and December 2022 respectively.

Both sister vessels are currently in service and contributing to Van Oord’s cleaner fleet operations.

Seatrium said that following delivery, the “Vox Alexia’ would set off from Singapore for further preparatory trials by the customer prior to being put into service later in 2023.

“Leveraging the experience of constructing two earlier units, and an integrated Seatrium-Van Oord team approach, the project was completed with good safety performance as well as stringent quality and performance standards,” said a statement from Seatrium and Van Oord.

Merger

Seatrium underwent a corporate transformation to a new brand and with its name changed from Sembcorp Marine Ltd following its merger with Keppel Offshore & Marine.

Seatrium and Van Oord added that the “Vox Alexia” was built to the requirements of the International Maritime Organization's Tier III regulations and construction was overseen by French maritime classification society Bureau Veritas.

The vessel has a hopper capacity of 10,500 cubic metres and incorporates highly automated marine and dredging systems.

The TSHD is equipped with a suction pipe with submerged e-driven dredge pump, two shore discharge dredge pumps, five bottom doors, a total installed power of 14,500 kW and is able to accommodate 22 persons.

“We are very pleased to now add ‘Vox Alexia’ to our fleet in addition to her sister vessels ‘Vox Ariane’ and ‘Vox Apolonia’, and as such contribute even more to the energy transition and decarbonisation of our fleet,” said Harold WM Linssen, Director of the Ship Management Department at Van Oord.

More projects

“We also look forward to utilising and further developing the established synergy with Seatrium in upcoming projects,” added Linssen.

Tan Leong Peng, Managing Director of the Seatrium subsidiary, Seatrium New Energy Limited, said that the successful delivery of the latest dual-fuelled vessel with LNG capability would contribute to Van Oord’s greener shipping operations.

“We are pleased to deliver ‘Vox Alexia’, the final unit in the series of three highly automated dual-fuel newbuild dredgers,” said Tan.

“All three TSHDs run on cleaner LNG fuel and integrate greener features for enhanced efficiency, improved performance and environmentally sustainable operations,” he stated.

Keppel Offshore and Marine, the Singapore shipbuilding and conversions company, has signed a contract for the first LNG floating regasification and storage unit that will be deployed in the Latin American country of El Salvador and will also build the largest US hopper-dredger for the Gulf of Mexico.