On June 25, 2015, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier
Coral Anthelia berthed at the
Gate terminal in Rotterdam. The Anthony Veder-owned vessel marks the 100th time that an LNG carrier has called at the Dutch facility.
Gate terminal is a subsidiary of Dutch firms
Vopak and
Gasunie. It is located on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam and is the first LNG import terminal to be launched in the Netherlands.
The facility was officially opened in September 2011. On January 20, 2014, Primagaz Benelux was the first company to load a trailer of LNG there.
The initial throughput capacity of the facility is 12 billion cubic metres (cbm) per annum, consisting of three storage tanks, two jetties and a process area where the LNG can be regasified.
Having completed its sea trials, the Coral Anthelia operates in the North Sea and Baltic Sea and regularly loads LNG at the Gate terminal.
Only recently, Anthony Veder had the Coral Anthelia retrofitted with a dual-fuel engine. Commenting on the development, the Port of Rotterdam said: "This innovation in the use of LNG for short sea shipping shows that retrofitting a tanker to run on LNG is both technically and financially viable."
Anthony Veder's CEO,
Jan Valkier is quoted as saying: "Not only was this project completed ahead of time and within budget, it was also executed without any safety incidents. This breakthrough innovation in the use of LNG for short sea shipping shows that retrofitting a tanker to run on LNG is both technically and financially viable."
The LNG carrier was delivered to Anthony Veder in 2013 with a conventional six-cylinder MaK M43C diesel engine.
The vessel's design was already optimised for ethylene trading, but the company's next objective was consumption of the boil-off gas as fuel when carrying LNG, but without completely replacing the existing old engine. The solution was found by retrofitting the engine to make it a MaK M46 dual-fuel engine.
