Built by San Giorgio shipyards, it can also supply commercial units and land tankers
The Green Pearl, a ship for transporting and supplying with LNG (liquefied natural gas), was inaugurated in Genoa: it will be able to supply ferries and cruise ships also with bio-LNG. It was commissioned in summer 2023 to the Genoese shipyard San Giorgio del Porto, on behalf of G&h shipping, a company between Gas and Heat (Evangelisti family) and San Giorgio itself, on the basis of a long charter contract (10 years) with Axpo Solutions. In recent months, Sofipa, the holding company of the Ottavio Novella shipping group, has also joined the company.
A dual fuel, electrically propelled unit, Green Pearl is 118 metres long and has a capacity of 7,500 cubic metres of LNG. It is designed to operate both ship-to-ship (supplying gas to ships) and ship-to-truck (supplying gas tankers ashore). Its area of operation will be the Mediterranean (mainly West Mediterrean and Italian coasts), while its deployment will be flexible, linked to contingent LNG and bio LNG refuelling needs at major ports. The vessel has been chartered by Axpo as part of a strategic project to develop the small-scale maritime LNG and bio LNG market, strengthening the supply chain in Italian ports and, potentially, in other Mediterranean ports.
“With Green Pearl,” says Simone Demarchi, Axpo Italy’s CEO, “we give concrete form to our vision: to accelerate the transition of maritime transport through safe, innovative and sustainability-oriented solutions. It is a project that strengthens Italy’s role in the Mediterranean, both as a distribution hub and as a platform capable of enabling new supply chains and making energy logistics more efficient, to the benefit of security of supply for the entire country.
According to Marco Novella, president of G&h shipping, “a long-term shared path begins today, with an initial 10-year charter, which we hope can be doubled over time, during which all parties will be committed to cooperating to the best of their ability to ensure the full success of this innovative project, which was also born with the desire to contribute concretely to the energy transition. We are particularly proud that the unit is flying the Italian flag, despite the complexity and commitment required by the process’.
Link Source
