Reederei Cassen Eils and Bomin Linde LNG have signed an agreement concerning the supply of liquefied natural gas for a new Helgoland ship which is currently under construction.
The Helgoland ferry will be operated by Reederei Cassen Eils, which belongs to the AG EMS Group. It will transport passengers and cargo to the North Sea island using environmentally friendly LNG from May 2015.
Bernhard Brons, Managing Director of AG EMS , said, “We are all set for Germany’s first new ship with an LNG engine.”
The ship will be refuelled in a bunkering process certified by both the classification society and the flag state.
“The technical process is comparable to the process of bunkering traditional fuels. However, as the liquefied natural gas is cooled to around -163°C, security precautions and appropriate staff training are essential,” emphasises Claus Hirsch, AG EMS Technical Inspector . “We will carry out a study to record our experiences with this pilot project and use this to develop recommendations for good practice.”
The liquefied natural gas supplied by Bomin Linde LNG will replace the more than 1.2 million litres of marine diesel that would be used as fuel by a comparable conventional ship every year.
Bomin Linde LNG plans to erect a storage facility in Hamburg which will serve as a base for delivering LNG to neighbouring ports.
The hull of the new Helgoland ship, which is currently under construction, will be undocked from the Hulcon shipyard in Szczecin and then tugged via the Kiel Canal to the Fassmer shipyard in Berne (near Bremen). The ship is scheduled for completion in May 2015.
The new Helgoland ship was commissioned from the Fassmer shipyard in Berne for more than 30 million euros. The ship will be 83 m long and 13 m wide and will have a draught of 3.6 m. The new LNG engine will have an output of 5,000 kW, providing maximum speed of 20 knots. The ship will have over 1,180 seats spread out over eight saloons, an atrium with a glass elevator on three decks and three upper decks. It will be able to transport containers measuring up to 10 feet and mixed cargo. The ship’s own crane will be able to lift loads weighing up to 10 tonnes.
[mappress mapid=”16181″]
Press Release; Image: Reederei Cassen Eils