Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday informed the 7500-cbm Coral Methane loaded first LNG at the recently opened third jetty at the Gate LNG terminal in Rotterdam.
The new LNG fuel infrastructure has recently been formally commissioned by Gate LNG terminal, with its shareholders Gasunie and Vopak.
The loading of the Shell-chartered Coral Methane was performed on Monday, September 19, with the cargo to be delivered to AGA AS, a Swedish industrial gas company.
New infrastructure at the Gate LNG terminal is expected to provide security of supply of liquefied natural gas for marine and road transport in northwest Europe.
In 2014, Shell reserved part of the capacity at the expanded facility for the loading of small-scale carriers, including its LNG bunkering vessel currently under construction.
The bunker vessel will be based at the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and will load from the new berth at Gate terminal. Once ready, the sea-going bunkering vessel will deliver to LNG-fuelled vessels in northwest Europe, other locations.
In December last year, Shell signed a time-charter agreement with Plouvier Transport and Intertrans Tankschiffahrt for 15 new inland dual-fuel barges, which will predominantly run on LNG with deliveries expected to take place between late-2016 and mid- 2018. The barges will bunker liquefied natural gas at the newly developed break bulk facilities.
The third jetty at the Gate terminal enables the loading of small volumes of LNG, from 1,000-cbm up to 20,000-cbm, with the potential for increase to 40,000-cbm in the long term.