Port of Rostock Hosts its First Ship-to-Ship LNG Bunkering

In the second ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operation to take place in Germany and the first ever in the Port of Rostock, the world’s largest LNG bunker vessel Kairos supplied fuel to the newly-built offshore installation vessel Orion. 

Orion is currently at the Liebherr construction yard in the Port of Rostock, where she is being outfitted with a 5,000-tonne crane. DEME is a leading adopter of LNG as a marine fuel, and Orion is its fifth dual-fuel vessel. The others include the three trailing suction hopper dredgers Minerva, Scheldt River and Bonny River, along with the cable laying vessel Living Stone.

“Our recent fleet additions are unique in their market segments as the first vessels in our industry to run on LNG. We want to make sure our fleet is future-proof and exceeds the current environmental regulations . . . Many of them are also already prepared for the new, carbon neutral fuels of the future and we will continue to scale up our actions to have the most energy efficient fleet in the industry,” said Bart Verboomen, the head of DEME’s technical department.

“This operation strengthens the LNG cluster in Rostock significantly and is an essential extension of the services offered by the port. The continuous development from the LNG bunkering operations by truck during the last years towards the first ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operation shows the strong operational performance of our team," said Jens A. Scharner, the managing director of Rostock Port. "We are grateful for the trust DEME and Nauticor have placed in us. Environmentally friendly fuels, such as LNG, and a shipping industry driven by sustainability will shape our port in the long-run.”