VesselsValue ship-tracking data shows that Shell’s 6,800m³ LNG bunker-supply newbuilding Cardissa has left the STX Offshore shipyard in South Korea and is sailing, fully laden, off Singapore.
Cardissa has loaded at Singapore LNG (SLNG) yesterday and is sailing northwest towards Gate Terminal in the Netherlands. Starting this summer, the vessel will supply LNG as marine fuel from Gate Terminal to ports across northwest Europe.
Shell has yet to announce when Cardissa will deliver its first bunkers, but it should happen this summer.
In February, the Gas4Sea partners took delivery of the 5,000m³ Engie Zeebrugge, the world’s first purpose-built LNG bunker supply ship from Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction (HHIC). Engie Zeebrugge carried out its first ship-to-ship transfer last week.
The second purpose-built ship, Sirius Veder Gas-owned Coralius, enters service next month. The 5,800m³ ship is chartered to Skangas and will serve the Baltic and North Sea.
A fourth newbuilding will be delivered by year-end. The 2,200m³ barge Clean Jacksonville will enter service in Tacoma, Washington before moving to its permanent base in Jacksonville, Florida, supplying LNG bunkers to Tote’s dual-fuel container ships.
These newbuildings join Seagas, the converted coastal ferry that delivers LNG to the ferry Viking Grace in Stockholm.
Five LNG bunker-supply ships is a drop in the ocean. Engie estimates that global shipping consumes 250 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil a year.
But more LNG bunker-supply ships are coming. Stolt-Nielsen has just ordered two small-scale LNG carriers that will initially deliver bunkers as well as supplies to shore, based in Italy and in Scotland.
In April Korea Line ordered two 7,500m³ small-scale LNG carriers, one of which will deliver LNG as marine fuel from 2019.
And in December, Bernhard Schulte booked a 7,500m³ LNG bunker-supply ship for charter to Nauticor – formerly Bomin Linde – from next year, at Klaipeda in Lithuania.
Things are about to get busy for LNG bunker-supply ships.
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