• 23 Jan 2018

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier, Nauticor, part of the Linde Group, signed a deal with Destination Gotland to supply the chilled fuel in Sweden.

The contract allows for the provision of LNG as fuel for the ferry service connecting the Swedish mainland with the island of Gotland, Nauticor said in a statement on Monday.

Destination Gotland’s first LNG fueled RoPax ferry M/S Visborg (32,000 gross tonnage) will begin operations on that ferry link in 2018.

Speaking of the agreement, Mahinde Abeynaike, CEO of Nauticor, said that the company’s new bunker vessel will play an important role in developing a tailor-made solution for Destination Gotland.

Nauticor will cooperate with its sister company AGA that operates the Linde Group’s LNG terminal in Nynäshamn. “This marks an important step in the development of a stable supply of LNG for the shipping industry in North Sea & Baltic Sea,”  Abeynaike added.

Hamburg, Germany, based Linde Group member Bomin Linde LNG has signed a time charter for a 7,500 cu.m LNG bunker supply vessel with shipowner Bernhard Schulte, to supply marine customers and small-scale LNG terminals along the Baltic Sea coast.

The company also signed, in October 2016, a letter of intent with the Swedish shipowner Furetank Rederi to start possible LNG supplies in the Baltic Sea region.

The vessel is being chartered to a joint venture in which Bomin Linde LNG holds 90 percent with the remaining 10 percent held by Klaipėdos Nafta, the owner and operator of the Klaipeda, Lithuania, LNG import terminal. Commissioning of the vessel is scheduled for late 2018.