Harvey Gulf’s LNG barge wins ABS, USCG approvals

Harvey Gulf International Marine (HGIM) said it has received both ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) class functional approval and USCG (United States Coast Guard) design bases approval on a 4,000 cubic meter LNG articulating tug barge (ATB).

The company said in its recent statement that the design accounts for ship-to-ship transfer and shore side resupply transfer.

Harvey Gulf, in cooperation with the design partner Waller Marine has developed a design package ahead of construction in an attempt to minimize the potential for delays and significant cost impacts to the project during construction.

The ATB has an approved design basis and its design meets all domestic and International requirement of a gas carrier, including the existing regulatory requirements, Harvey Gulf said.

Chad Verret EVP of LNG operation at Harvey Gulf said the vessel is designed to provide ship-to-ship bunkering to LNG-powered vessels as well as ship-to-shore transfer to small-scale marine distribution infrastructure.

The vessel has four independent 999-cbm type C cargo tanks and a load and discharge rate of 600-cbm per hour.