Türkiye’s BOTAŞ Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS), the state-owned crude oil and natural gas pipelines and trading company, has taken delivery of two LNG dual-fuel tugboats from compatriot Uzmar Shipyard.
The tugboats, Sultanhanı and Silivri, feature a length a length of 39 meters and a width of 15 meters and are the first dual-fuel tugs in Türkiye .
Designed by Canadian naval architecture firm Robert Allan Ltd., Sultanhanı and Silivri are TRAktor V3900-DF series dual-fuel tugs are equipped with Voith Schneider propellers and Wärtsilä 6L34DF engines which can run on either natural gas or diesel.
In addition, an exhaust aftertreatment arrangement consisting of SCR units, mixing tubes, and a dedicated diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) system are installed on the vessels to maintain IMO Tier III emission compliance even in diesel operating mode.
The TRAktor V3900-DF series tugs will operate under the Regional Directorate of Petroleum Operations of BOTAS in Ceyhan, Türkiye.
Huseyin Akmaz , Regional Director of BOTAS Petroleum Operations, said: “As BOTAS, we are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. 50 years ago we started our services at the Ceyhan terminal and today we have become an organisation that supplies natural gas to all 81 provinces of our country. In addition to oil and gas, which make up a large part of our services, maritime transport is one of our main activities. As BOTAS, we have reached a considerable size in maritime services with 33 vessels and 500 seafarers.
Today, we are harvesting the fruits of the contract we signed with UZMAR in 2022 to expand and strengthen our fleet in a modern way. We are proud and happy to add to our fleet the world’s first and our country’s first dual- fuel VSP propeller tugs.”
Uzmar’s CEO, A. Noyan Altug , added: “As UZMAR, we are very proud to see our name on these unique tugboats, which we have built for BOTAS. This is the work of art of Turkish engineers and we are delivering the second one of these distinguished tugbots today. This project is particularly important for our shipyard, which is known as the tugboat factory, and is a medal of prestige for us. At the point where BOTAS’s progressive vision meets our vision of the future, we wish that our environmentally friendly tugboats with superior technology, which have reached their most perfect state, will benefit our homeland, our nation and the Turkish maritime industry.”
As part of the work to expand and rejuvenate the tugboat fleet, BOTAS also has four electric battery-powered tugboats under construction at Sanmar Shipyards. These tugboats are based on the SANMAR ElectRA 2500-SX design developed by Robert Allan.