Kairos Begins Operations in Northwest Europe
The world’s largest LNG bunker supply vessel “Kairos” has started operations in Northwest Europe on December 11th, 2018, said a press note from the Polish LNG Platform.
Chartered by Blue LNG, a joint venture of the Hamburg based leading LNG supplier “Nauticor” with a 90% share and the Lithuanian energy infrastructure provider KN with a 10% share, the ship was handed over by the owner Babcock Schulte Energy in the port of Klaipeda.
Mahinde Abeynaike, CEO of Nauticor, underlined the importance of achieving this important milestone: “With the handover of “Kairos” we are securing the supply of LNG as a marine fuel in the Baltic Sea on a large-scale basis. Thanks to our large LNG storage tanks with a pump rate equivalent to more than 30 LNG trucks per hour and our innovative maneuvering technology, marine customers will be able to benefit from an extremely fast and safe LNG ship to ship supply. From now on, also large vessels can bunker LNG in the Baltic Sea.”
The construction of the vessel started in 2016 when the joint venture signed a time-charter agreement with ship owner Babcock Schulte Energy. In February 2018, steel cutting took place at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD) in Ulsan, South Korea, and in October 2018 the vessel was delivered by the shipyard.
With a tank capacity of 7,500 m³, Kairos is the world’s largest LNG bunker supply vessel. The ice class vessel has several other unique features, including the ballast-free design and installation of a CNG tank to store vapour return gas from customer vessels.
The Hamburg based company Nauticor GmbH & Co. KG, part of The Linde Group, is a leading supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel for ships.
