First French-flagged LNG vessel
After a long conversion period, the Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger Samuel de Champlain sailed from Damen shipyard in Dunkirk into the Loire estuary to start dredging operations.
Thus, TSHD Samuel de Champlain becomes the first French flag vessel using Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as a fuel, resulting from the first conversion ever of a dredger into dual fuel.
Dragages-Ports EIG, owner of the ship, decided in 2016 to replace the existing diesel generators of Samuel de Champlain by a dual fuel (diesel and LNG) system, in order to improve the reliability and the environmental performance of the ship. This conversion is part of a wider European project called « S/F SamueLNG for a Blue Atlantic arch », implemented by a consortium of 12 members, including the French ports of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, Le Havre and Rouen, but also the Spanish ports of Vigo and Gijon and their technical partners, and Central Dredging Association (CEDA). The European Union awarded a grant to this project via the Connecting Europe Facility and its horizontal priority “Motorways of the Sea”, without which the project would have been compromised.
The 17,8 M€ contract concerning the conversion of THSD Samuel de Champlain into dual fuel engines was awarded by Dragages-Ports in July, 2017, to Damen Shiprepair & Conversion after a European tender. Under the contract, Damen delivered a turnkey package that included engineering, replacement of existing gensets by three 3180kW dual fuel gensets based on MAN 6L35/44DF engines, two type C tanks containing 153m3 of LNG each, representing a range of one week. Two refuelling stations, a nitrogen unit, piping networks and the modernisation of the control/command system were also included in the contract.
Engineering studies and procurement took more than 14 months, and the conversion works started on October 8th, 2018, in Damen shipyard in Dunkirk. The delivery of the ship was initially scheduled to take place in January, 2019, but was delayed several times due to the numerous technical issues of this first-of-a-kind conversion of such a complex vessel.
The results of the whole SamueLNG project will be presented during a European conference in SaintNazaire (France), on the 25th and 26th of September, 2019.
By Jake Frith
