North west European LNG supplier Titan LNG is launching a new pontoon-based LNG bunker station designed to serve both inland and deepsea vessels operating in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region.
The Dutch company is in talks with shipyards to build what it has dubbed the Titan LNG Flex-Fueler Pontoon, a 70-metre-long unit that would house two type-C LNG tanks capable of offering a total of 600-cbm of LNG for bunkers.
The Flex-Fueler, which can be filled by truck, directly from a terminal or via ship-to-ship operations, can also be upscaled with addition of two further tanks to increase the LNG capacity to 1,200-cbm.
The unit would utilise flexible hoses guided by two onboard cranes for discharge operations at rates of between 30 and 450-cbm of LNG per hour.
Titan is currently engaged in permitting talks for a location near Amsterdam where the planned three-tank unit would be moored.
From here it could supply inland vessels but a push barge could also be engaged to move the pontoon to the required bunkering location for larger seagoing ships.
Titan LNG chief executive officer Niels den Nijs said the company plans to take a final investment on the Amsterdam project by the end of this year with a view to seeing the first unit in operation by first quarter 2018.
He says talks with potential customers are already underway.
Den Nijs and Titan commercial director Michael Schaap, who is presenting the Flex-Fueler project in London this week, highlighted the unit’s flexibility, adding that its low operational and capital expenditure will make it more economic than other bunker barge solutions.
A second TLT project for Rotterdam is on the drawing board.
This article has been slightly updated since publication to correct some technical details.
