The Spanish port of Bilbao has handled its thousandth LNG tanker with the “Rioja Knutsen” chartered by Naturgy.
The ship docked at the BBG jetty of BBG (Bahía de Bizkaia Gas) in the early hours of 20 January, coming from the United States, and unloaded a total of 164,000 m3 of LNG.
The vessel is an “Atlantic Max 2G” LNG tanker, which can transport liquefied gas at a temperature of -163º C in its cryogenic holds. The vessel, owned by Knutsen OAS Shipping, is 290 metres long and 46.4 metres wide, was built in South Korea in 2016 and sails under the Spanish flag.
Terminal in Bilbao has a capacity of 450,000 m3
Since the facility was commissioned in 2003, BBG has been of strategic importance for the import of natural gas to the entire Atlantic Arc. According to the company, natural gas traders who buy gas at the source have chosen BBG because the facility is flexible and can accommodate ever more powerful and larger ships, such as the so-called Q-Max, the largest LNG tankers in the world, which can transport up to 267,000 m3 of LNG in their holds. This traffic is also an important driver for the port of Bilbao, accounting for more than 10% of total cargo traffic.
The three BBG storage tanks, each with a capacity of 150,000 m3 (the third tank was commissioned in 2015), offer a total storage capacity of 450,000 m3 of LNG. The regasification capacity (returning the LNG to its gaseous state) of the plant is 800,000 Nm3/h, and the gas is then fed into the general supply network for consumption. The plant covers 200% of the gas demand in the Basque Country and 16% of the demand in Spain.
