Sigas Margrethe is first of five Queen-class ships for Eitzen

The 5,000m3 fully pressurised Sigas Margrethe is the lead vessel in a wide-ranging Eitzen Gas fleet renewal programme

Sigas Margrethe is the first in a group of five fully pressurised 5,000m3 LPG carriers built in Japan over the past 12 months and which Eitzen Gas has taken on long-term charter with an option to purchase from their Japanese owners. Delivered in August 2006, Sigas Margrethe was built by Sasaki Shipbuilding and is owned by Asuka Kisen of Imabari, a Japanese shipowner with which Eitzen has enjoyed a long and close association.

Sigas Margrethe was named in absentia because when the dignitaries gathered at the shipyard on Osaki-Kamijima Island for the christening ceremony on 18 August, a typhoon was threatening and the ship was ordered to sea to ride out the storm. Thus, the christening party was forced to gather at a nearby hotel where the vessel was duly named Sigas Margrethe by Janne Rasmussen, the wife of Eitzen Gas managing director Anders Rasmussen. By the time the shipyard hosts and their guests sat down to dinner, the threat of the typhoon had passed and Sigas Margrethe was allowed back into port, enabling the party to toast the new gas carrier as it sailed past the waterfront hotel.

On departure from the Sasaki yard, Sigas Margrethe got right to work, sailing for Kaohsiung in Taiwan a short distance away. There, a cargo of vinyl chloride monomer was loaded for a revenue-earning maiden voyage back to Europe. On discharge of the Taiwan cargo, Sigas Margrethe started work for Statoil in Northern Europe under a long-term charter arrangement with the Norwegian energy company.

As mentioned, Sigas Margrethe was the first of five similar ships of the so-called Queen-class to join the Eitzen Gas fleet over the past year. The next two ships – Sigas Maud and Sigas Ingrid – were built at the Miura yard. These ships entered the Eitzen Gas portfolio when Eitzen Chemical, an affiliate company, acquired Songa Shipping. The Songa operation included the two gas ships on order. After this pair were completed, attention switched to the Murakami Hide shipyard at Imabari where the final two 5,000m3 vessels, Sigas Sonja and Sigas Sylvie, were being prepared for handover. These last two Queen-class ships have now been delivered and are in service. Sigas Sonja has been subchartered to Geogas and is employed mainly in the Indian Ocean.

However, that is not the end of the fleet renewal programme underway with Eitzen’s LPG carriers. In July 2007 the Copenhagen-based company returned to Sasaki Shipbuilding to order six 2,500m3 fully pressurised LPG carriers for $14.2m each. The vessels will be delivered in 2011 and will be built to a design in which environmental considerations are afforded a high priority, thus enabling them to hold a ‘Green Passport’ notation from the class society.

Eitzen Gas A/S operates a fleet of 40 gas carriers and is part of the diversified Camillo Eitzen & Co ASA shipping group. The fleet comprises two distinct segments, ie, 24 fully pressurised and semi-pressurised/fully refrigerated (semi-ref) ships engaged in the carriage of LPG and chemical gases and 16 ships serving the ethylene trades. The LPG fleet ranges in size from 1,600 m3 to 6,500m3 while the ethylene fleet comprises vessels in the 8,300-17,000m3 size range. Sigas Margrethe and all the 5,000m3 fully pressurised Queen-class vessels sail in the 24-ship LPG fleet.

The LPG fleet underwent consolidation in the latter part of 2006 when Lauritzen Kosan and Eitzen Gas agreed to terminate their five-year partnership in the operation of Sigas Kosan, a specialist fleet comprising semi-ref ships up to 3,000m3 in size. Lauritzen sold its eight vessels in this fleet as well as its 50 per cent share in Sigas Kosan, as from 1 January 2007. All these vessels have now been absorbed into the Eitzen Gas operation and the 24 ships in the overall LPG fleet are coordinated from company offices in Copenhagen. Tasks undertaken there include strategic planning, marketing, the coordination of long-term contracts and the management of fleet renewal programmes.

The Eitzen Gas ethylene carriers are operated in a commercial joint venture operation with Norwegian Gas Carriers (Norgas) called Eitzen Norgas Gas Carriers (ENGC). Jointly managed by Eitzen and Norgas, the ENGC operation is administered from Singapore, with representative offices in Houston, Dubai, and Copenhagen. Eitzen Gas contributes 12 fully owned ships to the ENGC ethylene pool as well as a number of managed vessels owned by Solvang. The Solvang contribution includes three new 17,000m3 ethylene carriers being built by the Jos Meyer yard in Germany. The first of this trio, Clipper Hebe, has been delivered and has now joined the fleet. LPG