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Skangas confirmed on Tuesday that its chartered tanker Coralius - the first Europe-built LNG bunker vessel - has performed its maiden ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operation.

The delivery took place on September 19 in northern Kattegat, in the middle of the sea between Frederikshavn, Denmark, and Gothenburg, Sweden, with the Furetank Rederi-owned, 144-metre Fure West receiving the fuel [pictured].

"The bunkering of Fure West confirmed that Coralius delivers in accordance with what she is built for," said Kimmo Rahkamo, CEO of Skangas. "This is a key milestone in our history of developing the LNG availability. We are happy working together with our customer Furetank for this first of several upcoming ship-to-ship bunkerings."

As previously reported by Bunker Index, the Coralius carried out its maiden cargo delivery of LNG to Skangas's facility in Ora, near Fredrikstad, in southern Norway on September 14. The LNG was transported from Skangas's own production facility in Risavika, Stavanger.

The 5,800-cubic-metre-capacity Coralius is equipped with state-of-the-art LNG transfer equipment on board and the flat working deck is especially engineered for safe side-by-side operations. Special winches have also been installed to enable safe and swift mooring operations.

As a bunker vessel, the Coralius is designed to quickly discharge large quantities of LNG to its receiving vessel.

Skangas took delivery of the Coralius on September 2 from its owners Anthony Veder and Sirius Shipping.

Built in 2006, the Fure West is an oil and chemical tanker which operates mainly in the Baltic and Kattegat area. In 2015, the vessel was retrofitted with Caterpillar Marine's Mak M 43 C dual-fuel engine, enabling it to run on LNG. Caterpillar also supplied the complete gas system for the tanker, including bunker stations, two LNG tanks measuring 4.15 metres by 24 metres, and the vaporizer.

The Fure West is one of the few vessels in Gothenburg receiving the port's biggest environmental discount on port charges for running on LNG.

Image: The first ship-to-ship LNG bunker delivery of the Skangas-chartered Coralius - to the Fure West on September 19, 2017.