Wessels announces first boxship LNG refit

Wessels said the refit will be carried out next year on its 1,036 teu, 10,585gt feeder Wes Amelie.

The Berlin Government is providing support of more than a million Euros for the project to promote not only emission reductions but also “the development of an efficient LNG infrastructure in Germany”. Wessels noted that external support was “fundamentally important” for projects like Wes Amelie.

The conversion will be at a German shipyard and tenders are already being invited. Wessels said it will take place next April and be completed in 30 days with ship operation starting early December 2016.

Wessels said that in selecting the ship, special attention had been placed on “engineering scalability” and development costs, which it said were considerably more than installing a scrubber.

Because of this, a modern Type SSW 1000 feeder had been chosen, which operates in northern Europe and is one of many identical ships also capable of similar refit.

Wes Amelie is one of 23 sister ships of which 16 are structurally identical and in service with the same conversion-capable 8L48/60 B MAN engines. Worldwide, 82 ships had the same engines and other operators would benefit from know-how gained in the Wes Amelie pilot project, the owner added.

Wessels has collaborated for two years with MAN Diesel & Turbo and gas specialist TGE Marine Gas Engineering and will work with them on the refit. MAN will provide the engineering and components while TGE will supply the tank and LNG peripherals linking tank and engine. The as yet unnamed German yard will carry out the steel and pipe work on the ship.