Methane class

Methane class

The Methane Princess as a trailer in the River Fal

Ship data Ship type LNG gas tankers Shipping company British Methane Limited Shell Tankers, London Shipyard Vickers-Armstrong Shipbuilders, Barrow-in-Furness Harland & Wolff, Belfast Construction period 1963 to 1964 Units built 2 Cruising areas Arzew-Canvey Service

Ship dimensions and crew length 189 m ( Lüa ) width 25 m measurement 20,653 GT   crew 55

Machine system machine Steam turbine Machine performance 13,750 hp (10,113 kW) Top speed 17.5 kn (32 km / h) propeller 1

Transport capacities Load capacity 24,608 / 12,000 dwt Tank capacity 27,400 m³

The methane class were the first two ships in the world to be planned and rebuilt as LNG gas tankers .

history

After the experience with the converted LNG tanker Methane Pioneer , British Methane Limited and the Gas Council of the United Kingdom commissioned the Methane Princess and her sister ship Methane Progress , the first completely newbuildings for gas tankers exclusively for LNG transport. The ship was designed in collaboration with the New York marine engineering firm JJ Henry and the engineering firm Conch International Methane Limited, which specializes in natural gas tank systems.

Methane Princess and Methane Progress as trailers

1963/64 Vickers-Armstrongs built the Methane Princess in Barrow-in-Furness and Harland & Wolff in Belfast the sister ship Methane Progress . Both ships were put into service in 1964. The first cargo of the service between Arzew in Algeria and the LNG gas station on Canvey Island was delivered to the Thames on October 12, 1964. Together, the ships were able to make around 60 round trips per year and deliver around 700,000 tons of natural gas, which at the time of construction corresponded to around a tenth of the UK's annual natural gas consumption.

The two ships were launched on the River Fal in 1981. In October 1988 the Methane Princess was reactivated , while her sister ship Methane Progress was scrapped in Castellon in 1988. In May 1989 the Methane Princess was launched again. She finally arrived on March 9, 1997 for demolition at the Sachdeva Steel Corporation in Alang.

technology

Unlike the experimentally planned conversion of the motor ship Methane Pioneer , Methane Princess and Methane Progress were built with a tank capacity around five times as large as that of the Methane Pioneer for a commercially viable line service. The ship's design largely corresponded to a conventional double-hulled tanker with an aft deckhouse and an aft engine room. The two new buildings each had nine cubic gas tanks based on the conch system, the volume of which was around 27,400 m³, with which 12,200 tons of cargo could be transported. The aluminum alloy tanks were prefabricated and inserted into the existing ship structure and rested on the insulation made of balsa wood and glass wool . The liquefied gas was taken on board at a temperature of −258 ° F (-161.1 ° C) and was not further cooled there. The ships had a steam turbine drive whose Foster-Wheeler boiler used the boil-off gas of the cargo to generate steam.

The ships

Methane class
Building name	Shipyard / construction number	IMO number	delivery	Client	Whereabouts
Methane Princess	Vickers-Armstrong Shipbuilders / 1071	5412583	1964	British Methane Limited	From March 9, 1997 scrapped at Sachdeva Steel Corporation in Alang
Methane Progress	Harland & Wolff / 1653	5424744	1964	British Methane Limited	Scrapped in Castellon in 1988
Data: Equasis, large tonnage

literature

• The Liquid Natural Gas Tanker 'Methane Princess' Enters Service in The Motor Ship , No. 533, Vol. 45, December 1964, pp. 377/78
• Dual-fuel for two methane tankers in Marine Engineering / Log , No. 5, Vol. LXX, May 1965, pp. 53-55

Web links

• Peter G. Noble: A Short History of LNG Shipping 1959–2009 , SNAME, 2009 (PDF; 6 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Equasis homepage (English)
2. ↑ grosstonnage homepage (English)