Having been named in May this year and put to work in September, the LNG bunker supply vessel Coralius is making a name for herself as the first of her type to be built in Europe and specifically designed for the conditions of the Baltic and North Seas. As such she is built to 1A ice-class and is fitted with state of the art LNG-transfer and mooring equipment. She also has a noticeably flat working deck to support ship-to-ship transfers.

Built by Royal Bodewes Shipyard, Eemshaven, The Netherlands
Owned and operated by Anthony Veder and Sirius Shipping
Chartered by Skangas, Norway
Delivered in July 2017
LOA 99.6m
Beam 18.0m
GRT 5,600 tons
Capacity 5,800 cbm of LNG
Service speed 13 knots

  

The first ship to ship transfer by Coralius (picture above left) recently took place in international waters in the Northern Kattegat between Frederikshavn, Denmark, and Gothenburg, Sweden. The receiving vessel was the LOA 144m oil and chemical tanker Fure West. In 2015, its managers, Furetank Rederi, retroffited her from conventional heavy oil bunkers to LNG on account of her dedicated trading pattern in the Emissions Control Area (ECA) of the Baltic Sea and Kattegat. Coralius was built as part of a Pilot LNG umbrella project co-funded by the EU under Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) whose aim is to develop a pan-EU LNG bunkering infrastructure.

 

Coralius also recently bunkered her first vessel while alongside (picture above) when, on behalf of Skangas, LNG was supplied to the tanker Ternsund in the Port of Gothenburg. By way of context, in 2016 Skangas was involved in 4,300 LNG truck loading operations and over 600 vessel bunkering operations, numbers which are rapidly multiplying year on year.

As a pioneer in offering small to midscale LNG shipping and bunkering solutions, Anthony Veder is well known for development of innovative concepts to corner emerging markets. Coralius is therefore seen as a vessel combining the best of two worlds, namely direct service to terminals, particularly in remote ports, and to provide LNG bunkers direct to a vessel. Given her bow and stern thrusters, hose handling cranes and re-liquefaction plant, Coralius has all the maneuverability required of a vessel designed for such ship-to ship transfers.