Gibraltar saw the first ever LNG bunker supply within British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW) with the arrival of one of the worlds biggest floating cranes, the Panamanian Semi Submersible Crane Vessel (SSCV) “Sleipnir”, owned by Heerema Marine Contractors.
A total of almost 3200 Mt of LNG was transferred to the 8 bunker tanks of Sleipnir. This, to date has been the largest LNG bunker supply in Europe, according to Titan LNG. The SSCV anchored on the western side of Gibraltar on Friday 23 August 2019 after leaving Singapore on the 5 July 2019 as a new build, briefly calling at Cape Town, South Africa on 2 August before heading to the Mediterranean. The vessel is an impressive structure which has an overall length of 220m, a breadth of 102m with a total gross tonnage of 187,987 tons. The vessel houses 155 crew members and 102 passengers.
Whilst at anchor in Gibraltar, the Sleipnir carried out a number of operations which included crew changes, spares, stores and LNG bunkering. The LNG bunker was supplied by the LNG carrier Coral Fraseri owned by Titan LNG which arrived specifically to deliver the LNG to the SSCV. The SSCV Sleipnir left BGTW yesterday at around 2020hrs bound for Israel.
The LNG bunkering operation was only allowed after key personnel from both vessels met with a team from the Gibraltar Port Authority (GPA), including the Captain of the Port, his Deputy, Senior Officers, Bunkering Superintendent and the Pilots. The meeting was held at the Port’s office with the aim of ensuring that all relevant safety protocols were in place and all GPA criteria was met.
The Captain of the Port expressed his satisfaction with the way the operation had been conducted and highlighted that Gibraltar Port had demonstrated, once again, that it was a leader within the marine industry.
The Minister with responsibility for the Port and Maritime Affairs, the Hon Minister Gilbert Licudi QC MP was very pleased with the way the operation had been conducted and he hoped that this was the start of more regular LNG bunkering activity within BGTW.
Niels den Nijs, CEO Titan LNG commented: “We thank the Port of Gibraltar for their support and are proud of our STS team and the crew on board the Coral Fraseri. The operation was performed in the sheltered bay helping to make this a safe, efficient and smooth operation. We thank Heerema for their trust and cooperation that made this a successful bunkering operation in Gibraltar. We look forward to supplying Heerema with more LNG in the future to fulfil Titan’s mission of lowering harmful emissions from the marine and industrial sector.”
