Buquebus LNG-powered multihull ferry – the López Mena (Image: Incat)
Seven Cryobox® LNG nano stations, designed and manufactured by Galileo and commissioned by Uruguayan transport company Buquebus (“boat bus”) will fuel the tanks of the ‘López Mena’, the world’s first high speed passenger RO-RO ship powered by gas turbines fed on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The ferry will make daily crossings of the River Plate between Argentina and Uruguay.
According to Galileo, it will be the first time that a sea transportation company like Buquebus becomes its own self supplier of a fuel. Developed and patented by Galileo, Cryobox LNG production technology provides smaller companies with affordable refuelling solutions, opening up access to this clean environmentally friendly energy source.
So far, the production of LNG was unaffordable for private business companies interested in a clean burning, low-cost and light weight alternative source of energy. Only oil & gas major exporting countries could afford and manage the complex value chain and facilities necessary for its production and delivery.
Cryobox nano LNG station overcomes these hurdles through a cost effective solution, characterized by a high-pressure thermodynamic cycle that converts natural gas into liquid by cooling its temperature below -153 °C. Having a customizable LNG production capacity, it can reach a peak of 12 tpd (tons per day) or 7,000 gpd (gallons per day). It is a small-scaled mobile and packaged LNG production plant, which is ready to be shipped anywhere on a trailer for immediate start-off.
Operating together, the seven Cryobox nano stations will be able to produce 84 tpd or 49,000 gpd of LNG for delivery to the Buquebus wharf. The 100 metre ‘López Mena’ will be the largest catamaran operated by Buquebus on the River Plate waters. Shipbuilder Incat Tasmania Pty Ltd, based in Hobart Australia, described as the fastest, environmentally cleanest, most efficient, high speed ferry in the world.
With capacity for 950 passengers and approximately 156 cars, it has a projected lightship speed of 53 knots, and an operating speed of 50 knots. The passenger cabin will include tourist, business and first class seating. Launched in Hobart on November 17, 2012, it is the first high speed craft built under the British Code of Safety for High-Speed Craft (HSC code) powered by Gas Turbines using LNG as the primary fuel and marine distillate for standby and ancillary use.
Galileo describes the advent of the Cryobox as a huge step in a new era of eco-sustainable heavy duty transportation. ‘The integration of Cryobox® Galileo’s technologies in this challenge will demonstrate that LNG is the most suitable and cleanest power alternative for long-haul trucks; delivery fleets; buses; ships, barges and ferries; and railroad locomotives, when long distances should be covered, even when the odds of refueling are widely scattered. Since LNG has a superior energetic density than any other diesel substitute, it is possible to charge more fuel to cover longer distances in the same tank,’ said Osvaldo del Campo, CEO of Galileo.
(Source: Galileo)
