The world’s first top category ice class LNG carrier has docked at the Zeebrugge liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal for a series of scheduled operations. The vessel will be serving the Yamal LNG production terminal under construction in North Siberia.
The vessel was recently completed at yard and has moored at the Zeebrugge LNG terminal during its maiden trip for cooling down its cargo tanks and loading a small volume of LNG among other things. The carrier will continue its sea trials afterwards, setting sail to the Yamal peninsula in Siberia to undertake an ice performance testing programme.
Regular calls in the future
This will not be the vessel’s only call at the Zeebrugge LNG terminal. As it goes, a 20-year contract has been secured in 2015 to perform transshipments for the Yamal LNG project at the facility. Currently a 5th LNG storage tank and additional process facilities are under construction to provide these services.
Capable of proceeding through ice of more than 2 m thick
The vessel has been custom-designed and built for the Yamal LNG project to perform year-round navigation through the Arctic to its destination markets. On top of being a LNG carrier the vessel has top class ice breaking ability allowing it to proceed through ice up to 2.1 m thick.
A fleet of 15 similar vessels will be serving the Yamal LNG production terminal and will call on a regular basis at the Zeebrugge LNG terminal to perfom transshipment operations to conventional LNG carriers for further redelivery to all kind of destinations including Asia.
The ship named Christophe de Margerie after the former chief executive of Total killed in a 2014 Moscow plane crash.
