• 26 Jan 2018

Coral EnergICE, the first LNG carrier holding the Ice Class 1A Super, was named today Thursday 25 January by Aino-Maija Luukkonen, Mayor of Pori, Finland. The naming ceremony took place at the Port of Turku, Finland. The 18,000 cbm LNG vessel had been delivered to its owner, Anthony Veder, by Neptun Werft in Rostock, Germany. Coral EnergICE is specially designed and constructed to operate in the Baltic Sea. Skangas operates the vessel in order to bring LNG to Skangas LNG terminal in Pori and the joint venture Manga LNG terminal Tornio in Finland.

The vessel's hull is reinforced to break through one-meter thick ice with the engines and generators designed to give the vessel extra power when sailing through thick ice and harsh winter conditions. Furthermore, this state-of-the art vessel is equipped with a dual fuel engine. It uses LNG boil-off gas as a fuel for its main and auxiliary engines, making the vessel fully compliant with future emission regulations.

On deck innovations also provide for safe operations. One such example is the cap on deck, which protects the equipment and prevents icing outside. The vessel also has additional shelters on deck with warmer platforms for the crew's feet. Heat tracing on the doors ensures that they will always open, no matter how harsh the conditions might be.

Anthony Veder CEO, Jan Valkier says: "Coral EnergICE is the third LNG carrier we have delivered to our long-term customer Skangas in the past five years. The high-tech vessel is capable of serving the northern Finnish harbor of Tornio all year around, even when temperatures reach as low as -25 Celsius degrees. To ensure that it's a comfortable and friendly place for our crew to work, we engaged an ergonomic engineer to look closely at the accommodation design. I am extremely proud of the end-result."

Editor’s note. In the spring of 2012 Neptun Werft had successfully launched a first LNG tank (Coral Energy, from 15,660 cubic meters) and then chartered to Skangas, while in June 2017, a new LNG feeder and carrier Coralius class 1A ICE (5,800 cubic meters),  part of a Joint Industry Project, was added to the former.  Furthermore, Antony Veder's fleet includes two other ships capable of transporting LPG, Ethylene or LNG, such as Coral Methane (2009) and Coral Anthelia (2013).

Skangas CEO, Kimmo Rahkamo has also commented "Skangas helps its customers reach their environmental and operational targets by offering efficient and stable LNG deliveries. The new vessel supports our goal to develop the Nordic LNG infrastructure and gas market. This way, we can offer the end users in the maritime and industry sectors an even more competitive product."

Neptun Werft Managing Director, Raimon Strunck added: "Following the successful delivery of Coral Energy in 2012, we were delighted that Anthony Veder awarded us the construction of Coral EnergICE. The new vessel's design is based on Coral Energy, enhanced with technological innovations and construction adaptations for extreme cold weather conditions, thereby giving her the 1A Super ice class classification."