Gas Shipping Customer Saves Time & Money with Industry’s First In-Hull Dual Fuel Engine Conversion

For converting its vessel Coral Anthelia to dual fuel procedure, Anthony Veder worked with Cat® dealer Bolier to complete the actual industry’s first in-hull retrofit-saving considerable time and money in the procedure.
How’s this for a problem: Retrofit a marine diesel powered engine to dual energy operation in the hull of the ship without altering the particular vessel’s structure, limiting any kind of onboard operations or needing the ship to boat dock. Sound impossible? Not with regard to gas shipping company Anthony Veder and a team associated with Dutch partners, including Cat® dealer Bolier, who together to accomplish this industry-first feat. Much more impressively, it took less than 5 weeks.
The conversion happened aboard the Coral Anthelia, a carrier vessel that transfers ethylene and liquid gas (LNG) primarily in northwestern Europe. Today, the Coral formations Anthelia’s M 46 DF engine can run on LNG, marine diesel oil as well as heavy fuel oil-reaching industry-leading efficiency in gas setting. Using LNG eliminates typically the emission of sulfur and also particulate matter and decreases emissions of NOx along with CO2 by 90% in addition to 20%, respectively.
“LNG like a cargo creates a natural boil-off gas, ” says Frans Juhrend, customer support project professional at Bolier. “Anthony Veder wanted to find a solution to consume this particular gas and not release this into the environment. They chose to adapt the engine to be able to consume the boil-off gas-hence the conversion to run upon gas as fuel. ”
Anthony Veder wanted to use a dual fuel engine during the time of the ship’s construction, however the technology was not quite prepared. When it did become available, the organization conducted an R&D task to compare in-hull and outside-the-hull retrofits, with the in-hull procedure emerging as the clear champion.
Converting the Coral Anthelia’s MaKTM M 43 D diesel engine to a six-cylinder M 46 DF (dual fuel) platform, with every cylinder offering 900 kW of rated power, needed careful planning and cooperation between Anthony Veder as well as its partners.
“The deadline had been fixed, because commercial operations of the vessel in the girl new trade was arranged, ” Juhrend says. “Meeting the timeframe was only feasible due to a very efficient preparing phase. ”
Key levels in that phase included pre-determining all the transport openings by which required components could be moved, as well as laying out 90% of most necessary cabling on board often the vessel before arrival in the shipyard. That allowed the actual conversion team to begin removing, then rebuilding, the motor immediately.
Overall planning as well as operation were performed through Anthony Veder in near cooperation with partners through Bolier, Damen Shiprepair Rotterdam (Van Brink shipyard), Croon Elektrotechniek (electrical contractor), Leemberg (piping contractor) and Eekels (ship automation contractor). Regardless of the complexity, the team managed to perform the retrofit in less than several weeks. It helped which Caterpillar had strategically designed the M 46 DF to allow for the retrofitting regarding current M 43 Chemical engines. Synergies between the 2 platforms meant the in-hull conversion could occur without having moving the engine prevent or performing extensive machining.
The retrofitting process stored Anthony Veder considerable time and also money.
“Docking a boat is costly, so not really requiring the Coral Anthelia to go into dry pier was a significant cost preserving, ” Juhrend says. “The feedback from the customer continues to be very positive both on the particular conversion and on the new technologies. ”
While the Coral Anthelia’s retrofit was the marine industry’s first of its kind, Juhrend doesn’t believe it will be the final.
“The conversion from an current diesel engine to double fuel is mostly driven simply by either environmental, legislative or even financial reasons, ” this individual says. “For customers carrying LNG as cargo, this type of conversion results in a win win situation in all three places. ”
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