INTRA MARE, together with four principals (CHART, GUTTELING, HSH & KLAW-LNG) held a technical seminar with subject LNG ship to ship transfer & bunkering.
Seminar took place on 7th February 2019 afternoon at Athens Marriot Hotel and was keenly followed by a great number of attendees, representing ship operators, class-societies, DESFA/DEPA, consultants & designers, engineering companies, etc.
Mr. George Gerassimou, M.D. of INTRA MARE opened the seminar reverting with thanks towards the large audience and towards the panel of speakers who joined forces to approach the subject of LNG transfer & bunkering from technical scope.
Dr. Dimitrios V. Lyridis, Assoc. Professor, Director Laboratory for Maritime Transport, School of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering, National Technical University of Athens was the first speaker of the panel. He approached Sustainable Development and elaborated connections with LNG market and infrastructure projects in South East Mediterranean area involving small scale LNG projects, new bunkering stations, LNG barges new builds, etc.
Next speaker was Mr. Panos Mitrou, Technology & Innovation Manager, South Europe, Marine & Offshore, Business Development, LR who started by highlighting the macro and micro look of LNG and analyzed its impact on 2050 with prospects of using bio-LNG. He updated audience on the latest developments on Poseidon MED providing details on coming projects in local region.
Mr. Stavros Hatzigrigoris, M.D. of Maran Gas/Tankers selected to develop the subject of Ships-to-Ship / Ship-to-Shore operations involving FLNG and FSU/FSRU. He highlighted the operations of Near Shore vs. Offshore STS and Cargo connections between vessels (loading arms vs. flexible hoses). He mentioned several operational challenges and concluded his presentation by providing comments & improvements for further study.
The first of four makers to present their subject was Mr. Joris Van Kreij, Global Business Development Manager, Marine LNG Solutions, Chart Industries Inc. This company is a cryogenic specialist, maker of tanks and LNG integrator with a long reference list of installations, including land & ship projects executed in USA, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, etc. Mr. Van Kreij gave a brief introduction of indicative projects focusing on combining terminal functionalities such as regas & distribution towards bunkering, vehicle fueling station, truck loading, semi-trailers filing facilities, etc.
KLAW-LNG was next speaker represented by Mr. Matteo Suzzani, Business Development Manager. He started with group & company profile introduction and continued with product range description focusing on safe, ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore transfer systems. Mr. Suzzani highlighted the sensitive differences between large scale LNG transfer and LNG bunkering from technical & operational point of view and concluded by providing some interesting case studies.
After a short intermission for coffee & refreshments, the two last makers were invited in sequence to present their subject. First, Mr. Sander Verweij, Vice Managing Director from Gutteling refered to their wide range of composite hoses for marine & oil & gas industry with special focus on LNG transfer hoses. He provided a few interesting videos showing the demanding tests specified by class societies in order to authorize the necessary type approvals, which Gutteling has already. He also gave brief facts and figures of LNG marine hose business growth, summing up to an impressive result of over 35k operations achieved by Gutteling installed hoses.
Last but not least, Mr. Bas van den Beemt, Manager Service & Development of Henri Systems Holland (HSH) approached LNG transfering from the perspective of measuring instrumentation and discussed challenges of accuracy, selection of various metering systems, varying condition of tests, etc. With over 20 years experience on cryogenic cargo level gauging, HSH presented their new product developments which include in line flow metering systems and integrated radar & float tape tank level gauging sensors for both cargo and bunkering applications. HSH demonstrated a wide reference list including numerous LNG & LPG carriers (among those, many Greeks) but also small tankers & barges, where HSH offers a full scope of cargo control & instrumentation.
After an intermission for questions and answers, guests, together with the panel, had altogether a relaxed networking during a reception buffet. Overal, the seminar seemed that proved its original scope of providing specific technical information to the audience and that was well-noted and highly appreciated by many. INTRA MARE on behalf of their coorganizer makers would like to thank all attendees and promises new interesting technical seminars in near future.