Gate LNG Expands Truck Loading
Gate terminal, the Rotterdam LNG import facility jointly owned by Gasunie and Vopak, said July 12 it started commercial operation of its two new truck-loading bays on July 10.
Gate said it experienced a 50% increase of the truck loadings year-on-year, with 750 trucks loaded in the first six months of 2017. By adding two new bays, it believes it can efficiently cater for future growth in the demand for LNG distribution by road or containers, enabling the Gate terminal to enable customers to deliver LNG to retail stations, industry and ships.
The Gate terminal has 12bn m3/yr of import capacity, but throughput has never approached that kind of capacity. But it has been an innovator in investing in infrastructure that allows distributors to load LNG in smaller quantities: trucks have been loaded since 2014 at its first bay; and in September 2016 a third berth was added at the terminal to enable the loading of LNG bunker vessels.
LNG trucks loaded at Gate's facility have been known to be delivered as far afield as the Baltic Republics and southern Europe.
One such Dutch distributor is Rolande, 100%-owned by the Iveco Schouten group.
Rolande said July 4 it had acquired ENN Clean Fuels, adding the Dutch Zaandam and Oss LNG truck refuelling stations to its extensive network. Rolande said it now has eight filling stations across the Netherlands making it the largest LNG distributor to the country's road sector, supporting over 250 LNG-fuelled trucks there. Titan LNG, also owned by Iveco Schouten, supplies the Dutch LNG inland and maritime bunker market.
Mark Smedley