Construction begins on new battery-electric tugboat series

Sanmar Shipyards, the world’s largest electric tug builder, is building four battery-electric tugs for a client it described as an oil major, to support tankers entering, docking and leaving terminals.

The Turkish builder and owner is also building an electric tug for an existing client, thought to be SAAM Towage for operations in Chile, and two more on a speculative basis as interest grows in non-polluting tugboats.

All seven of these emissions-free battery-electric harbour tugs will be built to Robert Allan Ltd’s ElectRA 2500 SX designs with an overall length of around 25 m, a beam of 13 m and a draught of almost 6 m.

They will have Corus Orca energy storage systems and a back-up Caterpillar generator set to drive two azimuth thrusters at the stern producing a bollard pull of around 70 tonnes and a top speed of 12 knots.

These tugs will be in the middle range of the ElectRA class eco-friendly tugboats that come in a range of sizes, from 19 m to 28 m, with power outputs of 40 tonnes to 85 tonnes of bollard pull and will have a major impact on cutting emissions in the ports and terminals they operate within.

Sanmar has already delivered three ElectRA tugs to HaiSea Marine for docking gas carriers at a new LNG export terminal at Kitimat in British Columbia, western Canada. ITS Tug of the year 2023, HaiSea Wamis, along with HaiSea Wee’Git and HaiSea Brave, were built to ElectRA 2800 SX design and ABS class with an overall length of 28 m, a moulded beam of 13 m and a draught of 6 m, plus a Corvus Orca with 5.3 MWh of batteries and two Schottel SRP 460L thrusters.

Sanmar has also built two ElectRA 2300 SX design tugs, SAAM Volta and Chief Dan George, operated by SAAM Towage at the Neptune coal export terminal on the west coast of Canada. These ABS-class, 23-m tugs have a beam of 12 m, a draught of around 6 m, a Corvus Orca system with 3.6 MWh of battery capacity and a bollard pull of 70 tonnes.

Earlier in 2024, Sanmar delivered BB Electra, an ElectRA 2200 SX version, to Buksér og Berging in Norway and started operating Dinamo 2023, an ElectRA 2300 SX, as part of its own fleet.

“With the success of our ElectRA tugs, the interest in these radically new tugs has been huge,” says Sanmar Shipyards commercial director Ruchan Civgin. “We are leading the way to a sustainable low and no-emissions tug and towing industry.” With these latest newbuilding orders, Sanmar will have built 14 ElectRA tugs.