Evergas Tankers Transport Ethane from Marcus Hook to Europe

From an Article by Mike Corkhill, LNG World Shipping, July 26, 2018

The first of a pair of very large ethane carriers (VLECs) under construction at the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co (DSIC) shipyard for Evergas has been floated out from its building dock. The occasion was accompanied by cutting first steel for the second of the pair.

The two 85,000 m3 ethane carriers will be chartered to INEOS Trading & Shipping to carry ethane from the US Gulf to China. SP Chemicals has contracted to buy the cargoes that the first of the two VLECs will transport, for use as feedstock in a new 650,000 tonnes per annum ethylene cracker it is building at Taixing in China’s Jiangsu province.

The two newbuildings represent an extension of the ethane delivery capabilities of the shipping and trading arm of the giant INEOS petrochemical group. INEOS Trading & Shipping already charters eight 27,500 m3 Evergas-operated, Dragon-class ethane carriers for the transatlantic delivery of competitively priced US ethane to group ethylene crackers at Grangemouth in Scotland and Rafnes in Norway.

The first of the DSIC newbuildings is due for completion in Q1 2019. The pair, like the Dragon-class ethane carriers, are being built to the semi-pressurised/fully refrigerated (semi-ref) gas carrier design.

The vessels represent the first application of the semi-ref design to very large gas carriers and will be fitted with the largest IMO Type C pressure vessel cargo tanks ever constructed. IMO Type C gas tank containment systems do not require a secondary barrier.

Three of the four cargo tanks on each VLEC are being built to the Star Tri-lobe configuration to help optimise the cargo-carrying space available when the Type C containment system is chosen. The largest of the tri-lobe units, which consist of three cylinders combined into one, on the DSIC VLECs has a capacity of 23,000 m3 and weighs 1,800 tonnes.

For a given hull envelope, the tri-lobe solution offers a 20% increase in cargo space compared to using bi-lobe tanks. The Star Tri-lobe design was developed by JHW Engineering and Contracting in co-operation with the Hartmann Group. JHW, like Evergas, is part of the Jaccar Group.

Each of the DSIC VLECs will be powered by one of MAN’s M-type electronically controlled gas-injection (ME-GI) main engines. MAN designates the ethane-burning version of the ME-GI engine as its ME-GIE unit. Each vessel will be provided with a pair of deck-mounted cylindrical tanks to hold ethane fuel.

MAN Energy Solutions has supplied the 6G60 ME-GIE engine for each VLEC complete with its newly developed pump vaporiser unit (PVU), a device that ensures the supply of high-pressure gas to the ME-GIE engine in the correct manner. Providing full pump redundancy, the PVU costs less and occupies less space than previous fuel-gas supply systems for MAN’s high-pressure engines.

"induced seismicity" under study

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV

1. The top ten well-pads in Pennsylvania [in 2013] have produced 820 million dollars worth of natural gas, with estimated total royalty payouts of over 100 million dollars. These values are based on a total production of 245 million Mcf, at-the-wellhead pricing of $3.35/Mcf (the most recent pricing published by the US Energy Information Administration), and estimated 1/8th royalty payments (no allowances for production deductions). The residential pricing value of the produced gas is 2-1/3 billion dollars.

www.MarcellusGas.org 30 May 2014

With a few wells like this, no wonder the urban gambling investors are ready to despoil the countryside! Perhaps they think all Marcellus wells are as good.

2. The Bazhenov in Russia may be the largest shale play on earth. 80 times bigger than the Bakken. Despite the threat of sanctions hanging over Russia because of the standoff with Ukraine, Russian oil and gas opportunities like the Bazhenov appear to be too lucrative for Western companies to pass up, as follows:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/06/04/bakken-bazhenov-shale-oil/

ExxonMobil and Statoil have joint ventures with Rosneft, the Russian company. Not a drop of national loyalty to the U. S. to be seen here. Both the U. S and Norway (to a much lesser extent) are at loggerheads with Russia over Ukraine, while the oil companies are kissing Russia up, trying to get the oil.

3. Between 1967 through 2000, there were an average of 21 earthquakes yearly above magnitude 3.0. That rate shot up to an average of 300 earthquakes yearly after 2010. Because of the recent jump in earthquakes, and their significant size, the USGS plans to estimate the national shaking risk from “induced seismicity” for the first time, as follows:

http://news.yahoo.com/fracking-linked-earthquakes-may-strike-far-wells-133057848.ht

Ever see the old physics demonstration where the instructor fills a one gallon jug with water, inserts a cork so no air is between the cork and the water, then hits the cork lightly? The jug breaks easily. The identical force applied by one square inch of cork applies to each and every square inch of the interior of the jug.

Imagine the force that develops down the well when the equivalent volume of many tankers of water are forced down it day after day!

4. In 2013, the average total water volume for a fracturing event at a Pennsylvania unconventional well site was 5,365,363 gallons – the equivalent of 670 full tanker trucks. This is a 25% increase when compared to the average volume of water used per event in 2012 (4,259,693 gals). Our review of fracturing events shows the highest water usage recorded was nearly 19 million gallons. On February 15, 2012, the DCNR 595 6H well in Bloss township Tioga county, operated by Seneca Resources Corp, used 18,754,176 gallons of water for a fracturing event – enough to fill over 2,340 tanker trucks.

www.MarcellusGas.org 5/2/14

This “670 full tanker trucks average” is 96 truckloads of water a day for 7 days or one every 15 minutes, day and night for a full week. Noise, dust, diesel odors, lights at night, harrowing traffic conditions, school bus risk; and if rural, road destroyed, flag men, livestock and crops affected. If only Aubrey McClendon and Rex Tillman could live in such luxury, they would understand “externalized cost.”

5. Aubrey Miller found 52,000 unconventional (shale) gas wells in the U. S., yet when he searched the literature for research, he found little. “How do we have no data on an enterprise of this magnitude?”

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/science/20140302_GreenSpace__The_uncertain_state_of_gas_drilling_and_health.html#YRFxEB1kyymCLpea.99

The short answer: Because the industry doesn’t want any data let out.

Tomorrow, let’s focus on West Virginia specifically.

>>> Tom Bond is a retired professor of chemistry and resident farmer in central West Virginia <<<