A NEW CONCEPT BASED ON FIELD-PROVEN TECHNOLOGY

This concept of LNG bunkering is based on an existing, field-proven system, applied for many years, for hydrocarbons and mainly be found in
north European ports like Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg.

This concept consists of a rigid boom within parallel running hard piped components. Points of rotation of this boom are bridged with swivel joints.
The final connecting element towards a ship is a flexible hose that is lifted on board of the receiving vessel with the bunker boom.

This existing design is used as a basis and specifically adjusted for LNG application, such as usage of a field-proven LNG hose and the development of a convenient electric, hydraulically actuated emergency breakaway coupler. This results in an extremely reliable and efficient bunkering solution with the widest possible reach so as to serve any different vessels, not limited to a pre-determined or type of vessels.

In itself, the boom is both a lifting structure and a transfer system. The fact that the final element is a flexible hose is for more practical reasons.
The big advantages of this bunkering vessel mounted arm are:

• The bunkering vessel is used for parallel berthing to allow bunkering of receiving vessels simultaneously with their commercial loading and
offloading activities thus minimizing docking time.

• The same bunker arm can be used to fill the bunker vessel from a storage tank on shore. (bi-directional)

• A maximum of flexibility and very wide operation range to ensure a big variety in connection possibilities, as the position of bunker
connections on commercial vessels are not standardized like they are on oil and LPG/LNG carriers (per OCIMF);

bunker connections can be found on various places, sometimes even only reachable via a hatch in the hull of the ship.

For that reason, it is impossible to design a fully hard piped system (similar to a Marine Loading Arm) that can reach all different locations and compensate for tremendous height differences between bunker vessel and receiving vessel.

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