Spanish shipyard Astilleros Gondan has been awarded the newbuilding contract for three LNG-fueled escort tugs from Norway's Østensjø Rederi. The tugs will be operated at Statoil's Melkøya terminal.

The Robert Allan designed tugs will have Wärtsilä dual-fuel (DF) engines integrated with a customized gas storage and supply system also supplied by Wärtsilä. Though they will primarily burn LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), the Wärtsilä DF engines provide the flexibility to select the most suitable fuel according to availability, price and local environmental restrictions.

The three new escort tugs will operate in icy environments of down to to -20º C.

With dimensions of 40m in length and 16m in beam, they will have a bollard pull of 100 tons and escort steering force of 155 tons.

Delivery is scheduled for the first half of 2017.

Østensjø Rederi says that Astilleros Gondan was chosen to build the tugs based on an extensive evaluation taking into account experience, quality, price and delivery time.  Østensjø Rederi says it is very familiar with Gondan as the shipyard has delivered eight vessels to the company since 2005 — five tugs of this size and three large PSVs.