Liquefied natural gas (LNG), the cleanest marine fuel available for large-scale shipping, has arrived at the Port of Gothenburg with the first LNG bunkering of a loading ship completed on October 27, 2017.
The first ship-to-ship bunkering of LNG at the quayside, completed in early October, was followed by a further five ships before the first bunkering of a ship whilst it was loading.
LNG is supplied by Skangas through a newly constructed bunker and distribution vessel Coralius.
Dan-Erik Andersson, Gothenburg Port Authority Operations Manager at the Energy Port, described the occasion as “a major breakthrough”.
Andersson said: “Even five-10 years ago the idea of ships running on liquefied natural gas would have almost been regarded as science fiction.
“Now we have had seven LNG-bunkerings here in less than a month.”
The EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive states that it should be possible to bunker LNG at what are termed Sweden’s core ports — Luleå, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen/Malmö and Trelleborg — before 2025.
The Port of Gothenburg is the only port to realize this ambition in full.
Further bunkering options will arrive in 2018 when Swedegas builds a landside pipeline for LNG at the Energy Port in Gothenburg.
This investment will evolve through the construction of a larger facility that will supply both the transport sector and Swedish industry with liquefied gas.
Andersson added: “This development has been driven from different directions.
“We have shipping companies and energy producers that have had the foresight to invest responsibly in the long term, as well as public agencies that have been compliant with regard to the regulatory framework.
“The Sulphur Directive introduced in 2015 has spurred us on, and at the Gothenburg Port Authority we have offered incentives in the form of fuel transition discounts and other financial inducements.”
