Elefsis Helps Speed LNG Retrofit

With the LNG market heating up and owners needing to move quickly to take advantage of profitable opportunities, the work of three companies —Texon, Elefsis Shipyard and ABS — will be remembered fondly.

In less than four weeks, Swedenbased Texon fulfilled a retrofit of the integrated control system for a 72,000 cu. m. LNG-carrier, Polar Alaska. The order for this turn-key project was originally placed last summer for design & development, construction and installation of boil off gas controls, combustion controls, burner management and auxiliary controls, as well as monitoring systems including all related field equipment. The original scheduled delivery date, according to this contract, was March 2002. However, due to extraordinary circumstances, the delivery was suddenly moved forward by six months and the installation was completed in four weeks.

This conversion was carried out at Elefsis Shipyard, Greece, and in accordance with classification society, ABS, with an expected system life span of 15-20 years. Despite the extremely short delivery time, the overall performance of the system has proven to be very satisfactory.

Fuel oil consumption has been reduced to a minimum, savings up to 90 percent, due to safe "gas only" operation capabilities of the boilers has been recorded over a complete voyage. The increased combustion efficiency does also result in savings of gas to boilers by two to five percent.

The maintenance costs for the control system are reduced by 70-80 percent compared to the originally fitted system as learned from previous conversions. Also, a significantly reduced mechanical maintenance of the boiler, as well as a safer overall operation of the vessel is the result of this retrofit.

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