As another step forward to use dedicated liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered barges in its maritime transport, Royal Dutch Shell plc recently launched the first dedicated LNG barge from a shipyard in the Netherlands for transporting liquids products on the Rhine River. Shell already has touted similar petroleum product shipping in the United States (see Daily GPI, March 6).

Shell CEO Peter Voser said Shell envisions “a bright future for LNG as a fuel in both coastal and inland” maritime shipping.

Shell and others see the LNG-powered vessels as an answer to ever-stricter air emissions standards on waterways and coastal areas around the world. In the United States, this can be seen in various areas, such as the combined Los Angeles-Long Beach ports in Southern California, which in tandem are the nation’s busiest.

The new European LNG barge sports four efficient small engines, instead of the usual single-engine design, allowing power to be varied and savings realized on downstream, rather than upstream, voyages.

Scania-Sandfirden designed the dedicated natural gas engines, and the LNG fuel tanks and fueling systems were developed by other European firms, Cryonorm Projects and Cryovat-Rootselaar, respectively, according to Shell. Interstream is operating the new barge for Shell in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

In the United States, for its Gulf Coast and Mississippi River operations, Shell said recently that it plans to install a small-scale liquefaction unit (0.25 million tons per annum) at its Shell Geismar Chemicals facility in Geismar, LA. The unit will supply LNG along the Mississippi River, the Intra-Coastal Waterway and to the offshore Gulf of Mexico and the onshore oil and gas exploration areas of Texas and Louisiana.

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