• 10 Jul 2018

Central LNG Shipping Japan Corporation (CLS), the joint venture founded in May 2018  between the four Japanese companies Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line), Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), Chubu Electric Power Co. and Toyota Tsusho Corporation, has ordered a LNG Bunkering Vessel (LNG fuelled) at Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI).

The LNG bunkering vessel, which is scheduled to be delivered around September to December 2020, will become the first such vessel to be operated in Japan.

The four companies jointly established CLS and Central LNG Marine Fuel Japan Corporation (CLMF) to launch the LNG bunkering business in the Chubu (central) region of Japan. (See news ConferenceGNL of May 14, 2018 at the link http://www.conferenzagnl.com/bunkeraggio-gnl-giappone-alleanza-quattro/).

The bunkering vessel will be owned and managed by CLS, and LNG will be supplied to end-users through CLMF.

Built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the tanker will have a LNG cargo tank capacity of a 3,500 cubic meter. Other principal details of the LNG Bunkering Vessel  are a gross tonnage of 4,100 tons, an overall length of 81.7 meter and a 18.0 meter breadth.

The consortium's move to build the LNG bunker tanker is timely as the International Maritime Organization will cap sulfur content in marine fuel to 0.5% in 2020 from the current 3.5%.

A International Transport Forum report in April 2018 concluded that Japan has the potential to become a major hub for LNG bunkering (The report “Fuelling Maritime Shipping with Liquefied Natural Gas: The Case of Japan” can be loaded at the link  https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/maritime-bunkering-lng-japan.pdf).

Fonte:  MarineLog