A new LNG bunker vessel (LNGBV) controlled by energy major TotalEnergies has completed its first operation by supplying volumes to one of French liner giant CMA CGM’s container ships in the south of France.
The 18,600-cbm LNGBV Gas Vitality (built 2021), which is chartered to TotalEnergies and owned by Mitsui OSK Lines, bunkered the 15,000-teu CMA CGM Bali (built 2021) with 6,000-cbm of LNG at the Eurofos container terminal in the Port of Marseille Fos, Southern France.
The containership, which is deployed on the MEX 1 service between Asia and South Europe, took on bunkers while it carried out cargo operations simultaneously.
Another first
Gas Vitality was loaded LNG at Elengy’s Fos Cavaou LNG terminal on 28 December for the operation. CMA CGM said this also marks the terminal’s first loading of a small-scale LNG carrier.
Total Energies has a contract to fuel CMA CGM's dual-fuelled boxships
Gas Vitality is the major’s second chartered LNGBV. Sistership Gas Agility (built 2020) kicked off operations in Rotterdam in 2020.
Marseille-headquartered CMA CGM said the southern French port city is the first LNG bunkering hub in France for shipping, for all the Mediterranean and South Europe area, and the company’s third one to be created after Rotterdam and Singapore.
Big hitter
By the end of 2024, the CMA CGM Group will have a fleet of 44 LNG-fuelled vessels of various sizes – which the company described as "e-methane ready" — 24 of which are already in service.
"The engines deployed on these vessels already have the technical capability of using bio-methane - already in use - and e-methane, a carbon-neutral fuel, making them simultaneously an immediate and a long-term solution to the challenge of decarbonisation," the company said.
Company executive vice president of operations and assets Christine Cabau said the bunkering operation is an "important milestone" for the group. She said it sets France and the Marseille maritime and port cluster on the frontline for the decarbonisation of shipping.
Mediterranean ambitions
TotalEnergies vice president of marine fuels Jerome Leprince-Ringuet said it supported Marseille's ambition to be an LNG bunkering hub for the Mediterranean region.
Port of Marseille Fos chief executive Herve Martel described it as a milestone for the port which he said is "an essential LNG hub in the Mediterranean".
Cyril Ducau, who is chief executive of Eastern Pacific Shipping which owns the container ship involved in the operation said: ".. the operations in Marseille prove that the needed infrastructure to facilitate LNG bunkering is already in place."
