Estonian energy group, Elenger, has started providing LNG bunkering services to LNG-powered ships in the port of Hanko, Finland, for the first time in addition to Tallinn and Helsinki.
For the port of Hanko, this means scheduled LNG bunkering on its premises, and Elenger will be providing the service to two new ships in addition to Tallink’s Megastar.
The two ships bunkered by Elenger in the port of Hanko are the dual-fuel LNG vehicle carriers Auto Energy and Auto Eco that transport new vehicles from Europe to Finland and Russia.
The ships of ice-class 1A Super can accommodate a total of 4000 vehicles on their ten decks. Both ro-ro ships belong to UECC, one of the largest companies specializing in short sea vehicle shipping in Europe.
“In addition to new passenger ships, new cargo vessels are changing to the LNG technology in larger and larger numbers. LNG will eventually replace diesel fuel among marine fuels, which will contribute to cleaner air and cleaner Baltic Sea,” noted Kalev Reiljan , member of the board at Elenger.
In the following months, truck-to-ship bunkering in Hanko will be performed once a week, every Friday. Four truckloads of LNG, which makes 72 tonnes, will be pumped to the ship.
Like in Helsinki, Elenger is planning to deliver LNG to the port of Hanko from the new Novatek’s LNG plant in Vysotsk.
Elenger said that up until now, Tallink’s vessel Megastar has been truck-to-ship bunkered with LNG in the ports of Tallinn and Helsinki over 2000 times.
Last year, Elenger supplied over 16,000 tonnes of LNG from its various sources in Russia, Finland, Lithuania and Poland while the amount supplied a year before had been 12,300 tonnes. The company has procured nine semi-trailers for the purpose of LNG transportation and bunkering.
Currently the Dutch shipbuilding company Damen is building and LNG bunkering vessel for Elenger, which is to render services in the northern and eastern part of the Baltic Sea. It will be completed in 2020 and start bunkering vessels operating in the Gulf of Finland.