Finnish shipping company Containerships is pushing forward with its plans to boost the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel for ships and trucks in order to reduce emissions and meet tightening IMO regulations.

The company has currently four new dual-fuel container vessels under construction at Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard in China.

The short-sea vessels have a capacity of 1,400 TEU and will be operating in the Baltic and Nordic seas.

The first LNG-fuelled vessel, Nord is expected to start operations in the summer, while all four vessels are expected to be in service from early 2019, according to Containerships’ 2017 annual report released this week.

Containerships said it would in total invest up to 200 million euros ($239.5m) in LNG technology over the next five years, the largest singular investment in company’s history.

“An LNG-fuelled supply chain allows reducing the CO2 emissions by 50% compared to road transportation and 25% compared to a traditional multimodal supply chain,” the shipping company said in the report.

With regard to land transportation, the company made the most progress in the UK, where it had 40 LNG trucks in use at the end of 2017, according to the report.

The company plans to increase the fleet size of LNG-fuelled trucks to 200 by 2020.

“Containerships will be the first company in Europe to offer a fully LNG-enabled supply chain comprising trucks, vessels and refuelling stations with a 2–3 years first mover advantage,” it said.

Containerships also opened its own LNG refuelling station on the company’s premises at Teesport in May 2017.

The installation serves Containerships’ growing fleet of LNG-fuelled trucks in the UK.

LNG World News Staff