Newbuilds add hydrogen potential to HGK fleet

The Cologne-based company, said hydrogen played a priority role in its thinking. It added that had now been “clearly reflected” in two Type C tankships ordered from Dutch shipyard De Gerlien van Tiem.

HGK Shipping operates a fleet of around 300 own and chartered ships ranging from liquid chemical and gas carriers to dry and breakbulk carriers.

The company is part of the integrated Europe-wide logistic group HGK and moves around six million tons of liquid cargo a year. That in turn is however only part of the 35 million tons carried by HGK on the pan Europe Rhine waterway and its linked canals and tributaries.

The H2-ready newbuilds will see service in the first quarter of 2023 and HGK Shipping has as yet not released their technical specifications. It did however say their propulsion concepts and energy management systems, along with a “void space” located midships for future hydrogen storage, would pave the way for future technologies.

Intended for liquid chemicals transport, the newbuilds will be specially designed to meet high customer demand for sustainability and innovation in that segment, it said.

Norbert Meixner, who heads the HGK liquid chemicals business sector, commented: “We are convinced that hydrogen will be an important, if not the most important energy source of the future. That’s why we readying our ship designs so that they can be driven by hydrogen in future.”

The future-oriented design of the latest newbuilds was developed in the HGK Design Centre in Duisburg in co-operation with De Gerlien. HGK Ship Management Director Tim Gödde revealed that the work did not however end there. “In the coming months we want to lay the foundation for the realisation at a later stage of a hydrogen propulsion system”, he said.

The latest H2-ready ships follow orders for two hybrid drive newbuilds for HGK Shipping. The hybrid drive gas tanker Gas 94 was entering service in September while Synthese 18 will join the fleet next year, HGK Head of Group Projects and Digitalisation Maria Schippers told The Motorship.

The 110 x 12.5m Gas 94 has been built at Dutch shipyard TeamCo Shipyard on a hull from Poland’s Partner Stozcnia. It has been billed as “unique to gas tanker shipping”. The hybrid chemtanker Synthese 18 was being completed by De Gerlien van Tiem on a hull from Romanian yard Santierul Naval Orsova.

Maria Schippers told The Motorship earlier this year that the two ships laid the foundations for future hybrids and had significant advantages. “For example, we can compensate for ‘weaknesses’ in alternative fuels and still utilise them”, she noted.