Avenir LNG announced its wholly owned subsidiary, Avenir LNG B.V., has successfully conducted Germany’s first direct LNG unloading operation from a transport vessel into trucks. On February 22/23, the small-scale LNG transport vessel “Avenir Ascension” unloaded LNG directly into transport trucks in the Port of Mukran, Germany. The trucks were provided by global energy trader Vitol and transported the chilled fuel onwards to their growing European truck fueling station network, which is owned and operated by Vitol’s subsidiary ViGo Bioenergy GmbH.

Commenting on the successful operation, Peter Mackey, CEO of Avenir LNG Limited, said “We are excited about this successful LNG ship-to-truck operation in the Port of Mukran. This milestone underlines our commitment to ensure the supply of energy for our customers world-wide by providing the full small-scale supply chain from the major energy hubs to the end customers. We will continue to develop our supply portfolio, consisting of vessels, terminals and trucking operations and ship-to-truck unloading operations are going to complete our offers for customers in the marine, industry, and transport sector. Germany has moved quickly to build out large-scale LNG import infrastructure to support gas security of supply into the grid. This new ship-to-truck initiative is focussed on supplying the German market for trucked LNG which is one of the largest markets in Europe and is so far not served by any of the large-scale FSRU based projects.”

The operation in Mukran was prepared as a pilot project to demonstrate the viability of setting up an energy supply chain for decentralized regions without the requirement for large-scale LNG unloading and terminal infrastructure. The vessel was at berth for 3 days, with LNG unloading operations completed during this time. The necessary preparations for the test operation were completed within weeks rather than the extended development period required for larger, permanent infrastructure such as onshore terminals or FSRUs. The short development time allows Avenir to develop its global LNG small-scale supply infrastructure in line with customer requirements and set up LNG & bio-LNG supply chains rapidly and in a flexible way in the future in other areas, too.

With Vitol S.A. being the customer for this test operation and its 100% subsidiary ViGo Services GmbH providing the truck loading service in the Port of Mukran, Avenir has found two strong partners within the same group of companies for this test case. Christian Schneider, Managing Director of ViGo Bioenergy GmbH, commented, “The ViGo Bioenergy truck fuelling station network is growing substantially and we are expanding into new regions. Therefore, we are always looking for new and innovative ways to secure the LNG & bio-LNG needs of our customers from the transport industry. The partnership with Avenir LNG for the direct loading of LNG from a vessel into our trucks proves that we are always going the extra mile to achieve those goals and we are looking for more ways to work together with our partners.”