Methanes Pioneer
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The ship Methane Pioneer existed from 1945 to 1972, after reconstruction in 1958 as the world's first LNG - gas tankers .
history
prehistory
In the 1950s, the Union Stock Yard & Transit Company investigated the possibility of transporting liquefied natural gas more easily by sea from the Gulf of Mexico to Chicago . In Chicago, the natural gas was to be vaporized in the food industry using the resulting cooling effect and then used industrially. In 1954, WL Morrison, the chairman of a research organization in Lake Forest, suggested that Union Stock Yard refrigerate the methane to liquefy it. Ingalls Shipbuilding then built the gas transport barge methane with tanks according to the Morrison system, with which an economically viable gas transport could be carried out, which was converted into an oil lighter after further tests for LNG sea transport, since the use of natural gas in the food industry has been banned by the authorities.
In 1955 the Union Stock Yard combined its efforts in this regard with the Continental Oil Company in the joint company Constock Liquid Methane Corporation . The latter commissioned the New York shipbuilding office JJ Henry with the preparation of the plans and the later construction supervision of the conversion of an existing ship to an LNG gas tanker according to the Morrison system. The Boston company Arthur D. Little Inc. carried out experimental studies to find the tanks to be installed, and an aluminum alloy was found to be a suitable material. After solving this and a number of other fundamental problems, the Constock Liquid Methane Corporation teamed up with the British Gas Council to build the pilot plants on land and the first ship. Constock built a $ 5 million gas liquefaction facility in Lake Charles , Louisiana. The joint company British Methane Limited , based in the Bahamas, was founded to own the ship and was supposed to purchase and convert a ship for around five million US dollars. The North Thames Gas Board in London built a land plant on the Thames for around one million US dollars .
Ship and remodeling
The ship intended for conversion was a unit of the American standard type C1-M-AV1. The ship, built in 1945 as a freighter Marline Hitch at the W. Butler shipyard in Duluth , was one of a series of over 200 units of this design by the United States Maritime Commission . Since the ship was completed too late for war use , the US government sold it in 1946 to a shipping company in Panama , which used it as Don Aurelio . From 1951, the ship then sailed as Normarti for the North Atlantic & Gulf Steamship Company before it was acquired by British Methane Limited in 1958 .
The conversion to a gas tanker was commissioned in 1958 from the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Corporation in Mobile . The old main deck of the ship was removed, the hull in the tank area was raised and five cubic gas tanks made of an aluminum alloy were installed in the existing holds . The front cargo area was not affected by the conversion. The tanks received around 12 inches of balsa wood insulation above the double floor and on the sides , and the area above the tanks was insulated with an 18 inch layer of fiberglass .
Use and whereabouts
By late 1958, the Lake Charles land station was ready to fill the first gas charge into the converted ship. The management of the ship was entrusted to the Stevenson Clarke shipping company. After test drives in the Gulf of Mexico, the ship was unloaded again and further investigations were carried out on the ships' tanks, lines and handling facilities. The first regular journey with natural gas from Lake Charles to Great Britain began on January 29, 1959. On February 20, the Methane Pioneer reached the facility on Canvey Island between London and Southend .
From the beginning, the ship was only planned as an experimental vehicle with which the practical feasibility of natural gas transport by sea should be researched. Seven more voyages from Lake Charles to Canvey Island followed, after which the ship was first laid up and then converted to an LPG tanker. In 1967 the Methane Pioneer was sold to Antarctic Gas Incorporated and renamed Aristotle . At the end of its career, the ship served as a floating gas station in Recife before it was finally scrapped in 1972.
Based on the experience gained with the Methane Pioneer , the Gas Council and Conch International Methane had the two larger ships Methane Princess and Methane Progress built together in 1963/64 , with which mainly natural gas was carried from Arzew to Canvey Island.
literature
- Now, Liquid Methane Goes by Sea . In: Marine Engineering / Log , No. 4, Vol. LXIV, April 1959, pp. 53-57
- Sawyer, LA; Mitchell, WH: From America to United States - The History of the long-range Merchant Shipbuilding Program of the United States Maritime Commission - Part One . 2nd Edition. World Ship Society, Kendal 1979, ISBN 0-905617-08-8 .
- Howard A. McKinley: The Prospects for Liquefied Natural Gas in the European Energy Market , Symposium on Petroleum Economics and Evaluation, Dallas, 1965, ISBN 978-1-55563-864-1