Quartet to trial SNG use on LNG-fueled Wes Amelie

Nauticor, a Hamburg based LNG supplier, is partnering on the technical showcase of the world’s first use of synthetic natural gas (SNG) as fuel for the LNG-retrofit containership Wes Amelie. 

The showcase is being organized by MAN Energy Solutions and Wessels Marine and supported by Nauticor and Unifeeder, the charter company.

As part of the project, the 1,036-teu feeder container ship Wes Amelie will replace a share of the LNG, that the vessel uses for a roundtrip, with SNG. More specifically, MAN Energy Solutions said in its statement that 20 of the 120 tons of LNG that the Wes Amelie typically uses per round trip will be replaced by climate-neutral SNG.

In its statement, Nauticor noted that automobile manufacturer Audi’s Power-to-Gas facility in Werlte near Cloppenburg, Germany, where a liquefaction plant is currently under construction, will provide 20 tons of SNG for the project.

The facility is using wind energy to produce the SNG and, therefore, is providing a 100 percent climate-neutral product.

As soon as the liquefaction plant will be commissioned, which is currently foreseen for the second quarter of 2020, Nauticor will take care of the transport of the SNG from the production facility to the ship.

“The Wes Amelie project has always been about demonstrating the technologically doable while pointing out the regulatory actions necessary to make it possible,” said Christian Hoepfner, managing owner of Wessels Marine, Hamburg. “The initial retrofit to LNG took support from the German Government to be financially viable, but it was a huge success for the environment in that it drastically reduced emissions. As a consequence, there now is a retrofit programme in place to make more retrofits happen.”