Image: Crowley Maritime Corporation

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The first of Crowley Maritime's two Commitment-class combination container/roll-on roll-off 'ConRo' ships, El Coqui, has been supplied with LNG for the first time in a milestone operation for the US firm.

Eagle LNG Partners and Clean Energy together delivered around 410,000 gallons of LNG on 41 trailers earlier this month.

The two firms trucked the trailers from their respective LNG plants to the Mississippi shipyard where the vessel is being constructed, so that Crowley could begin transferring the LNG into the ship's fuel tanks.

Each truckload took around an hour to empty into El Coqui, and the entire transfer took several days to complete.

Now that the fuel has been delivered, the ship's cryogenic, vacuum-insulated system will keep the LNG in a frigid state - around minus 260 degrees farenheit - until it is ready for use.

Going forward, Eagle LNG Partners' new liquefaction facility, located in Maxville, will exclusively support the fuel needs of both El Coqui and Crowley's other ConRo vessel, Taino. Bunker Index reported Crowley's first loading of LNG from Maxville at the end of March.

To meet these demands, Eagle LNG and Crowley's LNG engineering team together constructed a dockside LNG fuel depot at the company's leased property at Jacksonville's Talleyrand Marine Terminal, which is designed to provide faster, more efficient fueling. This location was also engineered to feature a compact footprint specifically for ship bunkering operations.