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LNG bunker supplier Skangas has announced that a naming ceremony is due to be held later this month for a new ship that it describes as "the first ice class 1A super liquefied natural gas LNG vessel".

Named the Coral EnergICE, the 164-metre-long ship is due to start transporting LNG to the Pori and Tornio terminals in Finland. It is owned by Netherlands-based Anthony Veder and on a long-term time charter with Skangas.

The naming ceremony is scheduled to be held next week, on January 25, in Turku, Finland.

Skangas has a liquefaction plant in Risavika, Norway, in addition to owning and operating LNG terminals in Ora (Norway), Lysekil (Sweden), and Pori (Finland).

Skangas is also a shareholder of the Manga LNG joint venture, which is due to open the new terminal in Tornio, Finland, this year. When launched, it will be the the biggest LNG import terminal in the Nordics.

Skangas supplies LNG as fuel in shipping and heavy-duty road transport, and in industrial processes outside the gas network. The company's LNG portfolio consists of the purchase of feed gas, LNG liquefaction, and distribution of LNG by trucks and ships through receiving terminals, to customer facilities where LNG is regasified to natural gas or delivered as fuel to end users.

Last September, Skangas took delivery of the 5,800-cubic-metre-capacity Coralius from its owners Anthony Veder and Sirius Shipping, with the vessel now on a long-term charter to perform LNG bunker deliveries for Skangas in the North Sea, the Skagerak area and the Baltic Sea.

Additionally, the company operates the Coral Energy, which is the world's first direct-driven, dual-fuel, ice-class 1A LNG carrier.

Skangas's majority shareholder is Gasum, which last June increased its shareholding in the LNG bunker supplier from 51 percent to 70 percent, with Lyse Group - which had a 49 percent stake in the firm - decreasing its ownership to 30 percent.

According to ship-tracking data on January 19, the Coral EnergICE was moored in Rostock, Germany.