LNG

China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) has chosen CIMC Sinopacific Offshore and Engineering to build a mid-scale liquefied natural gas bunkering vessel.

CNOOC Energy Development, a unit of the Chinese major issued a tender in November 2021 for a bunkering ship with 12,000 cubic metres capacity as the East China bunkering business gathers pace.

CNOOC’s architecture for the LNG bunkering vessel includes two type C tanks dual-fuel propulsion and will have operational capacity to reach the planned Wuhu LNG inland terminal in Anhui, along the Yangtze River.

The bunkering vessel builder, CIMC SOE, a unit of CIMC Enric, has already signed the construction contact.

The delivery date for the CNOOC fuelling ship is mid-2024.

After several years of research and talks with yards, CNOOC has finally set its bunkering plans in motion.

The company has additionally been collecting fuel customers from scores of LNG-powered vessels ordered in China.

CNOOC’s gas and power unit signed a deal with Guangdong Province Navigation Group, parent of GNG Ocean Shipping, which has this year ordered 50 small LNG-powered bulk carriers at CSSC’s Guijiang Shipbuilding.

Another Chinese major, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) is also involved in. bunkering and is further advanced than CNOOC.

Sinopec completed its first LNG bunkering operation in September 2021 in Weihai, a major seaport in the eastern Shandong province.

The refuelling operation involved transferring 250 tonnes of LNG by quayside truck to a China Merchant Shipping vessel.

Sinopec is China’s largest supplier of marine fuels.

The use of LNG as a marine fuel has been gaining traction amid a global push to reduce the shipping industry’s carbon emission.

Elenger, the energy company in the Baltic state of Estonia, has taken delivery of the first of a Damen Shipyard-built liquefied natural gas bunkering vessel, the first LNG fuel supplier deployed in the Gulf of Finland to serve ships and shoreside small-scale customers.

The “Optimus” is 100-metres in length with 6,000 cubic metres of capacity in two type-C tanks.

The deployment of the ship involved multinational efforts from project participants in China, Estonia, Russia, the Netherlands and France.

“Its introduction is expected to accelerate the wider adoption of LNG as a cleaner alternative fuel in the Baltic Sea by providing a mobile and efficient ship-to-ship distribution service for the first time,” said Elenger.

The vessel loaded LNG in the port at Vysotsk island in Russia and headed to Tallinn in Estonia.

The bunkering vessel was built in China at the Damen Shipyard in Yichang City, located on the left bank of the Yangtze River.

The construction was overseen by French classification society Bureau Veritas.

Gas trials for the “Optimus” were completed in the Damen Verolme shipyard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

The owner of the “Optimus” is Estonian investment company Infortar and Elenger is the charterer.

“Optimus is designed to meet the requirements of ICE class 1A certification and to achieve green ship notation,” said Elenger.

“A dual-fuel propulsion system is used for the management of the boil-off gas in combination with a gas boiler system, and the interior of the vessel features high-quality accommodation for her crew,” added the company.

“With this first LNG bunkering vessel, Elenger has significantly expanded its LNG distribution business in the Baltic region,” said the company.

It has been supplying one of the leading regional ferry companies, Tallink Group, for the past five years, refuelling its LNG-fuelled RoPax ferry “Megastar” using multiple specialist trucks.

The “Megastar “will be one of the first beneficiaries of the arrival of “Optimus”, followed in spring 2022 by Tallink’s new LNG-fuelled RoPax ferry “MyStar”.

Ain Hanschmidt, Chief Executive of the Estonian-based owners, investment firm Infortar, said its strategy is to invest in safe and sustainable LNG supply for various maritime customers in the Gulf of Finland region.

The construction of the “Optimus” was supported by the European Union Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding programme and was co-financed by the leading financial services group in Finland, OP Financial Group.