TGE Marine has won a contract to provide the LNG containment, fuel gas supply and its proprietary boil-off-gas (BOG) Recondenser systems for four PCTCs on order with a consortium of ship owners including Oslo’s Gram Car Carriers ASA and Reederei Laeisz in Rostock, Germany.
For the two ship owners, these PCTCs, each with a capacity of 7,000 cars, are the first to be fuelled by LNG and they also represent TGE Marine’s first contract with the companies.
The ships will be built by China Merchants Jingling Shipyard (Weihai) Co., Ltd. and deliveries are expected by the end of 2025 and the end of 2026 for the first and fourth PCTCs respectively.
Key to securing the contract was the extensive BOG handling study TGE Marine conducted for the ship owners, using operational data from one of their vessels on a specific route. This highlighted the extensive benefits of using the Recondenser.
For each vessel, TGE Marine is designing and supplying two Type-C LNG fuel gas tanks, each with a capacity of 1,675 m³, its TGE Marine Recondenser System and the fuel gas supply system for the consumption of BOG in the high-pressure main engine.
The TGE Marine Fuel Gas System is designed for maximum uptime with a high degree of redundancy as all pertinent system components are spared and all particularly susceptible parts are protected with a sophisticated filter concept. Furthermore, TGE Marine’s service team can deploy remote access tools to detect faults at an early stage and hence take action before major problems occur. In addition, TGE Marine is developing an extensive training programme for the ships’ crews and inspectors.
TGE Marine’s recently developed Recondenser System ensures full recondensation of excess BOG, which is subsequently routed to the HP fuel gas pumps before being consumed by the main HP engine. The system comes with two-stage BOG compression, enabling a recondensation rate equivalent to up to 20% of the main engine’s overall fuel consumption. The system guarantees that BOG can be used as fuel when the ship is sailing and therefore results in an optimised balance of CAPEX and OPEX while taking ship operational requirements into consideration.
Additional benefits of using the TGE Marine Recondenser System include the possibility to boost energy efficiency by using a shaft generator, thus eliminating the need to operate the auxiliary engines during the ship voyage and consequently reducing the operating hours of These engines. By this measure CO2 emissions and methane slip can be reduced considerably.
TGE Marine senior sales manager Dieter Hilmes said: “The co-operation with Gram Car Carriers and Reederei Laeisz was very constructive right from the start. Through our extensive BOG handling studies, we have succeeded in developing a tailor-made system for the shipping companies.”
Reederei Laeisz’ managing technical director Harald Schlotfeldt added: “ Together with the experts from TGE Marine, we have succeeded in developing a first-class fuel gas supply system that will give us many years of enjoyment with low operating costs.”