Total’s large LNG bunker vessel (LNGBV) newbuilding is expected to carry out its first fuelling operation in November.
TradeWinds understands the 18,600-cbm newbuilding Gas Agility is scheduled to refuel CMA CGM’s first 23,000-teu LNG-fuelled containership, the CMA CGM Jacques Saade, in Rotterdam.
The LNGBV is owned by Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines and is on time charter to the French energy major’s Total Marine Fuels Global Solutions (TMFGS).
There has been talk in the industry that the Gas Agility might be used for other operations before the first of the French liner giant’s nine ultra-large boxships arrive, but at present this is not the case.
The LNGBV was built at China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group)’s yard in China alongside the first of the CMA CGM ships. The bunker vessel and the containerships are firsts for the Chinese yard.
But their construction and operational departures have been delayed partly by the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The first bunkering operation was originally scheduled for April.
The Gas Agility was formally named in a small ceremony at Rotterdam’s Cruise Terminal on Friday.
Just under 30 people were present at the event with numbers restricted due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions.
French President Emmanuel Macron had been lined up to attend in a larger ceremony planned for earlier this year. But these plans had to be shelved.
The membrane-type Gas Agility, the world’s largest LNGBV by over 6,000 cbm, is now expected to undergo several more days of commissioning and adjustments while it awaits its first customer.
It was designed to fit with the capacity of the boxships' single 18,600-cbm bunker tanks that allow them to complete a round trip from Asia to Europe burning gas.
At the naming event, TMFGS managing director Jerome Leprince-Ringuet said the LNGBV’s arrival marked three years of work with MOL and Hudong-Zhonghua to plan and build “a major development in global marine LNG fuel supply”.
“Gas Agility is a clear demonstration of our ongoing drive to develop key logistical LNG infrastructures in the main bunkering hubs around the world, helping the shipping industry make the move to a more sustainable fuel solution,” he said.
MOL executive vice president Takeshi Hashimoto said that using LNG as a fuel is competitive, environmentally friendly and an “immediately available solution”.
“By providing the capacity to deliver LNG as a marine fuel, this partnership will be the leader in transition to a more fuel-efficient industry,” he said.
