Cat Marine completes in-hull dual-fuel conversion

The conversion of the vessel Coral Anthelia to dual fuel operation presented somewhat of a challenge. The retrofit of the marine diesel engine had to be carried out in the hull of a ship without altering the vessel’s structure, limiting any onboard operations or requiring the ship to dock.

Coral Anthelia is a carrier vessel that transports ethylene and LNG primarily in northwestern Europe. The retrofit means that the vessel’s M 46 DF engine can now run on LNG, marine diesel oil and heavy fuel oil—reaching industry-leading efficiency in gas mode.

“LNG as a cargo creates a natural boil-off gas,” said Frans Juhrend, customer support project engineer at Bolier. “Anthony Veder wanted to find a solution to consume this gas and not release it into the environment. They decided to adapt the engine in order to consume the boil-off gas—hence the conversion to run on gas as fuel.”

With the project deadline set at just five weeks, the job required careful planning and collaboration between Anthony Veder and its project partners.

Key steps in the project included pre-determining all the transport openings through which required components could be transferred, as well as laying out 90% of all necessary cabling on board the vessel before arrival at the shipyard. That allowed the conversion team to begin disassembling, then rebuilding, the engine immediately.

Overall planning and operation of the project was performed in close cooperation with Shiprepair Rotterdam (Van Brink shipyard), Croon Elektrotechniek (electrical contractor), Leemberg (piping contractor) and Eekels (ship automation contractor).