Wärtsilä, Teekay develop LNG-fueled shuttle tanker concept

Finnish technology group, Wärtsilä, together with one of the world’s largest shippers Teekay, has developed a new LNG-fueled shuttle tanker concept.

Teekay has additionally backed the concept by ordering four of these vessels at the Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) yard in South Korea, Wärtsilä said in its statement, adding that these include a range of Wärtsilä solutions, worth over €110 million ($131.3 million).

The concept will be operating on liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the primary fuel and feature dual-fuel engines capable of running on a mixture of LNG and recovered volatile organic compounds (VOC), the gas evaporating from the oil cargo tanks during loading, all with an aim to reduce annual emissions of CO2 equivalents by over 40 percent, compared to conventional shuttle tankers.

Wärtsilä will provide its hybrid system, on which the power distribution will be based. It uses batteries for fuel savings, peak load shaving, and added overall system redundancy.

Wärtsilä’s scope in enabling this concept also comprises the full electric and automation system, which includes the Wärtsilä Low Loss Hybrid (LLH) system and batteries, the Wärtsilä LNGPac fuel storage and supply system.

The scope also includes the Wärtsilä VOC system for recovering and liquefying the VOC with a storage and supply system, Wärtsilä 34DF dual-fuel gas engines, the fuel mixing system with liquid VOC and LNG as the main fuel for the engine, gas turbines to handle the surplus gas, Wärtsilä cargo and ballast pumps and a Wärtsilä inert gas generator.

Also included in Wärtsilä’s integrated solution for this vessel concept is Eniram’s vessel performance management system.

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