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The LNG distributor for ships Nauticor GmbH & Co. KG in Hamburg, belonging to the Linde group, and the Fr Fassmer shipyard (belonging to the Swiss group of the same name in Bern) have signed a collaboration agreement for the construction and conversion of ships powered by LNG.
The first project carried out under the new cooperation involved the initial LNG bunkering at the Fassmer shipyard of the Atair research vessel, specialized in marine surveys built for the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. The 75-meter ship will enter service in 2020, replacing a 30-year-old ship of the same name, will be supplied with LNG by Nauticor for the entire trial period.
The two companies had collaborated for the first time in 2015 following the construction of the Helgoland, the first LNG-powered ferry built in Germany by the Bernese shipbuilding group, for which Bomin Linde (the predecessor of Nauticor) had provided for the first supply of LNG.
According to Richard Schröder, CEO of Nauticor, "the customers of the Fassmer shipyard will benefit significantly from the cooperation between the two companies by taking on Nauticor's specialist knowledge of LNG procurement, storage and transportation, as well as LNG bunkering for ships".
Christian Schmidt, head of Fassmer project, underlined that the cooperation between the two companies was stimulated by the "growing interest of shipbuilders for the new LNG-powered ships or for their retrofit, underlining that in 2019 - according to DNV GL - 100 ships powered by LNG were ordered, a number equivalent to three times the average of the orders registered in the three-year period 2016 - 2018.
Source: Fassmer
