The Norwegian company, CRYO Shipping, has claimed a milestone earlier this week completing the largest LNG bunkering operation in Asia to date.
The company noted it bunkered LNG to the 103,500-DWT shuttle tanker Altera Wave, in the Singapore Strait. It became the largest LNG-powered merchant ship to be supplied with LNG from a bunker vessel in Asia, Cryo Shipping said in its statement.
The Norwegian registered shuttle tanker, Altera Wave, is part of a series of newbuilds developed by the shipping company, Altera Infrastructure.
The LNG bunkering operation of Altera Wave was carried out in partnership with Petronas using the latter’s LNG bunkering vessel, the 7,500-cbm Avenir Advantage . The partnership allows CRYO Shipping to provide LNG bunker services in South East Asia.
LNG-powered vessel numbers rising in Asia
The growth of LNG-powered vessels in recent years has primarily been seen in northern Europe, where there is a positive trend in developing LNG infrastructure to make environmentally friendly energy available to the maritime industry.
There is now a change of pace where a few world-leading shipping companies take responsibility and leadership by investing in LNG-powered ships, and this will be the commencement of the fuel disruption in international shipping.
CRYO Shipping currently provides LNG supply using trucks, containers and terminals and is now commencing ship-to-ship LNG bunkering.
The company will be chartering external bunker vessel capacity until it takes delivery of its own LNG bunkers & feeder vessels in 2023.
CRYO Shipping has an investment program of $100 million in “green” infrastructure including both investment in LNG bunker vessels and small-scale LNG terminals
“The market outlook for the next 10 years is strong and exponential growth, and CRYO Shipping’s investments are strategically important to ensure a good market position at the commencement to the disruptive energy market” , commented Nicholai Olsen, CRYO Shipping’s managing director.