Titan Completes Conversion of LNG Carriers to Bunker Vessels

Titan completed the conversion of two recently acquired small-scale LNG carriers into bunkering vessels. In addition to providing a quicker means to expand the LNG bunkering infrastructure, the company reports the conversion of vessels designed to transport gas into bunker vessels provides enhanced capabilities.

The vessels which were built in 2011, were acquired from Seapeak, the Canadian gas transportation company formerly known as Teekay LNG Partners. The company was rebranded in 2022 and was realigning its fleet with the order of new vessels and the acquisition of Evergas, which it completed late in 2022. The Seapeak Unikum was delivered to Titan on March 24 in Gibraltar and the Seapeak Vision was due to be handed over in April.

Titan said at the time that it would retrofit the carriers to improve LNG bunkering capabilities. The work was designed to ensure that they would be able to load at all major LNG terminals and perform ship-to-ship bunkering and loading operations. In addition, the company noted due to their cargo conditioning capabilities, the vessel would also be capable of “doing more complex projects, including gas-up cool-down operations and commissioning parcels.” 

Each of the ships has a cargo capacity of 12,000 cbm. Built as carriers, they have the advantage of stainless steel cargo tanks, which makes them compatible with propylene, ethylene, and ammonia. In addition to bunkering LNG and bio-LNG, in the future, the company looks to use the vessel to bunker hydrogen-derived e-methane.

“Retrofitting these ships so that they can trade and bunker LNG, LBM, and in the longer-term hydrogen derived e-methane, offers Titan even more flexibility in its clean fuel operations,” said Douwe de Jong, fleet development director at Titan when the acquisition was announced.

The conversion of the Titan Unikum was undertaken at Metalships & Docks S.A.U. shipyard in Spain while the work on the Titan Vision took place at the PaxOcean shipyard in Indonesia. The upgrading work was recently completed and both vessels are entering service as versatile LNG Bunker Vessels (LNGBVs).

Titan notes that it was able to introduce this added capacity in just four months from delivery. The vessels will be used to cater to the increasing demand for LNG and bio-LNG in Europe. They previously reported that the plan was to deploy the vessels in the Mediterranean and northwest Europe.