International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 6

Number 4

December 2012

1 INTRODUCTION

Already in 2005 the Parliamentary Committee on

Economic Affairs has raised the issue of increasing

Europe's energy dependence. The consequences of

this dependence on imported energy resources have

proven most obvious in January 2006 and 2009

when natural gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine

were dramatically limited and have become an

instrument of political respectively economics

pressure. Even these cases confirm the fact, that

energy security is one of the key conditions of

smooth States functioning and globalization is

essential to ensure the competitiveness of European

economies. At present, only few European countries

are energy self-sufficient: only Denmark, Norway,

Russian Federation and United Kingdom produce

more energy than they consume.

Efforts of European countries is to use as much as

possible a wide range of domestic energy sources,

but most of countries are reliant on imported oil and

natural gas. In this context, it is a considerable

problem for several countries of Central and Eastern

Europe, which are absolute dependent on imported

oil and gas from one supplier.

2 THE IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL GAS FOR

ENERGY SECURITY OF EUROPEAN

COUNTRIES

Natural gas is the world's second largest energy

source. Its share in total energy consumption is now

23% per year, with its growth average of 1.6% per

year. Experts estimate the state of natural gas

reserves about 511 000 billion cubic meters with a

lifetime of up to 200 years. However, there are three

types of natural gas sources: proven natural gas

reserves, probable natural gas reserves and potential

natural gas reserves. There is a proven natural gas

resource about 164 000 cubic meters, which its

mining is currently available by nowadays economic

and technical means with deliverability till 2060.

71.7% of these sources are in land and the rest

28.3% in marine shelves.

Probable reserves are reserves discovered on

bearing, exhibiting a very high probability that they

will be exploitable by economic and technical

conditions similar to those in proven natural gas

reserves. Bearings are not technically equipped yet.

In addition to the category of proven natural gas

reserves, with high probability, we may count with

River – Sea Technology in Transport of Energy

Products

T. Kalina & P. Piala

University of Zilina, Slovakia

ABSTRACT: One of the key conditions to the smooth functioning of the state is its energy security. Most

countries in Central and Eastern Europe are dependent on imported energy raw materials from one supplier.

In connection with the growing importance of diversification of energy products, technologies and supply

routes. Security of supply of strategic energy resources can be better ensured by using far less preferred

alternatives. An example would be the use of inland waterways for delivery of energy products to the end

consumers and enabling deliv

eries to places where the geographical, demographic or environmental

specificities do not use traditional means.

469

probable reserves. Just because of second resources

category sectional transfer into the proven natural

gas reserves, there is a still growing amount of

proven natural gas reserve and its “lifetime”. The

probable natural gas reserves represent more than

374 000 billion cubic meters. World gas reserve (the

information of the International Gas Union), taking

into account consumption and deliverability of

proven and probable natural gas reserves, is 12 to

152 years.

Even EU countries adapt to the general trend of

replacing fossil fuels such as coal, lignite and oil

well by environmentally more friendly natural gas.

The Majority share of the consumed gas in Europe

comes from British, Dutch, Italian, Romanian,

German and Danish resources. The significant part

of the total gas imports come from Russia, Norway

and Algeria.

One of the aims of European policy is to diversify

sources of energy and transport routes. The most

discussed is just the gas. The European Union

supports the construction of the Nabucco pipeline,

which is considered as a strategically important

energy project. Nevertheless, its development is

hampered by lack of funds and weak political

pressure. Nabucco should have a length of 3400

kilometers and through Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria,

Hungary and Austria it should deliver annually 31

bilion cubic meters of natural gas from Central Asia

to the EU. Similarly, the BTC pipeline (Baku-

Tbilisi-Ceyhan), bypassing Russian territory. It

should be completed in 2013, but it faces fierce

competition from the planned South Stream pipeline,

which develops the Russian Gazprom. The

contracted amount of gas, investments, and also

agreements with South stream transport countries is

the project South stream considerably further than

the Nabucco. Even, there were speculations that both

projects could be linked together.

The Imports of Russian gas represents about 26%

of the total consumption of EU countries. For

Central and Eastern Europe, Russian gas is 87% of

total imports. For example Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia,

Finland and Lithuania depend on 100% import from

Russia, Bulgaria and Czech Republic Russian gas

covers 94% or 82% of their consumption. In terms

of energy for the EU is the primary effort to

maintain access to Algerian natural gas reserves,

which could reduce dependence on Russia. Algeria's

economy is heavily dependent on exports of

hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas) –what make up

97% of exports, contributing 30% of GDP and

finance 65% of the budget. EU imports 62.7% of

Algerian exports, what is 58% of total EU natural

gas imports. The weakest link in the chain of gas

path from source to final consumer is a long haul.

Current technology for transporting natural gas

allows long distances through pipelines or tankers in

liquefied form. Wide branched European network of

pipelines is preferred within the continental gas

transport. In the recent past, it was annexed to the

undersea pipeline connecting with the sites of

customers in North Africa. (Melčák, 2010)

Most gas from Algeria and Nigeria to Europe is

transported in compressed form (CNG, PNG) by sea

tankers into offshore terminals, followed by

distribution pipelines, marine, rail and road tankers.

Transhipment and storage capacity of most of these

terminals is already at its limits. The solution is

either construction of the new ones or substantial

increase in inland traffic flows. An appropriate

alternative also could be to carry liquefied natural

gas (LPG).

Already today, liquefied natural gas contributed

26% of the total trade in gas. Terminals for liquefied

natural gas are located in countries with large natural

gas reserves. For example: Algeria, Australia,

Brunei, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria, Oman and Qatar.

The whole process of natural gas liquefaction is

energy-intensive. Energy needed for liquefaction of

natural gas equals 1/3 energy of gas liquefaction.

However, the liquefaction of gas will achieve a

substantial simplification of his carriage. The big

advantage is the reduction of its volume in the

liquefaction process: one liter of LNG is

approximately 600 liters of gas in its natural form,

and low storage pressure (up to 5 bar) compared to

200 bar pressure in transport compressed gas in

normal tubular pressure tanks.

In 2005, there about 50 for LPG import terminals,

worldwide. The biggest receiving terminals in the

world are located in Japan, which covers more than

half of the global trade in LNG. In Europe, eight

countries - Belgium, France, Italy, Norway,

Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Great Britain has at

least one terminal for processing and storage of

imported LPG. France occupies the first place,

which imports from Algeria 10 billion cubic meters

of gas annually. Further extension of the network of

European import terminals are planned or just under

construction.

3 SAFETY ASPECTS OF LNG TRANSPORT

LNG transportation safety could be assessed from

two views. The first is the danger of explosion and

subsequent fire. The second is the environmental

aspect. LNG is transported at low pressure. Because

of its low temperature, the gas is transported in

double-wall tanks with vacuum Perlite insulation.

Perfect insulation protects contents from heat and

pressure, even if the container gets into fire and lose

vacuum. There are known cases where cars

470

transporting the LNG were burnt due to a

malfunction of electrical installations, but the tank

remained intact. Tanks are designed according to the

regulations so they withstand even external fire.

There had been no accident relative to explosion or

fire in the content of LNG tankers.

There are not known any maritime disasters LNG

tankers, which currently operates about 200, or

several dozen river LNG tankers, which operates

within Europe, in contrast with oil tankers.

Compared with diesel and petrol, LNG is

significantly safer, but it does not mean that LNG

transport is completely safe. It may occur that large

LNG amounts can escape from the ship into water.

In that case RPT (rapitphasetransition) effect occur.

If the liquefied gas, which has a temperature of

about -163 ° C will suddenly appears in a warmer

ambient temperature, the liquefied natural gas will

quickly change over to gas. During this transition

occurs massive release of energy, which may cause

an explosion.

Ignition of liquefied natural gas needs

evaporation in a significant heat input and

consequently it is possible to ignite its mixture with

air, but only in a narrow range of concentrations

from 5 to 15% at 280°C ignition, which is

considerably higher value as in the case of gasoline

or diesel. Prevention of such cases is associated not

only with designing ships for transporting LPG, but

also employing skilled crews, trained specifically for

such shipments.

Neither from the environmental considerations,

LNG transport does not represent increased risk.

When the tanker accidents, there is not direct water

damage by gas, because it does not accumulate in

the water. Damage results from the possible leakage

of chemicals or oils, which are necessary for the

operation of the vessel, not directly from the cargo

content of the LNG tanker. From this perspective,

the LNG tanker accident is comparable to any ship

transporting cargo safe. Contrary, the part load is

vaporized, it is estimated from 0.1% to 0.25% of

total amount daily, it can be effectively used as fuel

for the vessel. Thanks to that may be used up to

100% of this gas. (Chrz, 2009)

4 INLAND NAVIGATION - SOLUTION FOR

COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE

The most of the transport capacity of the current

fleet of transoceanic ships carrying liquefied natural

gas is made up of tankers with a capacity of 120,000

to 140,000 m

. Construction of these ships is

very complex and technologically demanding. Just

only ten producers from all over the world have

substantial experience with structures of this type.

These include Finland (Kvaerner Masa), Germany

(HDW), Italy (ItalcantieriGenoa, ItalcantieriSistri),

France (Atlantique, La Ciotat, La Seine, La Trait),

Japan (IHI Chita, ImabariHigaki, Imamura, Sakaide

Kawasaki, Mitsubishi Nagasaki, NKK Tsu) North

Korea (DaewooHanjin, Hyundai, Samsung),

Netherlands (Bijlsma), Norway (MossMoss,

MossStavanger), Spain (Astana, IZAR PuertoReal,

IZAR Sestao), USA (GD Quincy).

Use of inland waterways for transportation of

LNG is particularly relevant for landlocked

countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Network of

inland waterways of the European Union consists of

approximately 37 000 km navigable rivers and

canals. Interlinking Danube, Main and the Rhine by

trans-European waterway was obtained connection

of the Black and North Sea with a direct connection

to a branched network of waterways of western

France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and the

Netherlands. This waterway has become one of the

infra-structural priorities of European transport

projects, taken within the European transport policy.

The decisive goal of this priority is full of this

important navigable waterway so that vessels can be

transferred once as a group of goods from the North

Sea to the Black Sea on the minimum weight of

3000 tons. Overall, the EU has earmarked for this

task, the amount of 1 889 million € and from it 180

million € for the route Vienna – Bratislava. A

significant amount is expected to use on the Lower

Danube for removing ford sections with regard to

the transport of heavy bulk items and also items

containing dangerous cargo. An equally important

activity for the Central European region in this

direction is the effort to link the Danube with the

North and Baltic Sea by canals and rivers Elbe and

Oder. Czech, Slovak and Austrian investors,

promote the implementation of project canal Danube

- Oder - Elbe in the trans-EU and the European

Agreement on main inland waterways of

international importance. The aim of this project is

connect the missing link in the waterway network

and its implementation would allow countries of the

region to maximize the gains from trade, including

the extension of facilities for transportation of such

commodities, such as LNG.

Vessels for LNG transportation by inland

waterways have a capacity of 2000 - 4000 m

equivalent to 1.2 to 2.4 million m

of natural gas.

Restrictions on the transport of liquefied natural gas

associated with a sufficient bridges clearance on the

waterway. Given the low density of LNG (0.45 t /

) issue draft of the vessel is negligible.

Maybe there is room for recovery in the recently

neglected mixed river - sea technology, whose

philosophy is based on the elimination of boundaries

between sea and river, which means elimination of

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transhipment from marine vessels onto river vessels

and back. The removing just one transhipment

brings considerable economic and time savings. In

this case there is no need to build (on the route) any

pumping equipment and the ship can navigate from

dispatch (liquefying terminal) to a port of

destination. By conducted research can be concluded

that the use of technology "river - sea" in

comparison with separate technologies, "inland

navigation" and "maritime navigation" is possible to

reduce transport costs about 10% to 15%. Positive

effects of this technology appear in connection with

the organization of transport, particularly when they

are introduced by providing logistical technological

scheme "house to house".(Klepoch & Žarnay, 1998)

5 ROLE OF RIVER-SEA NAVIGATION IN THE

EUROPEAN INLAND NAVIGATION

SYSTEM

At the various international meetings relating to the

further development of cooperation among the

member countries of the Economic Commission for

Europe (ECE) in the context of the AGN

Agreement, attention is always given to the

important role of river-sea navigation in developing

the Pan-European inland navigation market. A

number of studies suggest that the establishment of

efficient coastal routes would have the following

benefits: Transfer of foreign-trade freight traffic to

river shipping; Completing the circle, currently

broken in places, of category E waterways, linking

the deep waterways of the European part of Russia

to the network of European waterways of

international significance and establishing a pan-

European ring of trunk waterways around the whole

of Europe; More effective use of the Rhine-Main-

Danube trans-European trunk waterway and the pan-

European transport corridors; Rendering transport

operations more environmentally friendly and

economically advantageous, since freight will be

conveyed by inland waterways directly into the

hinterland; Use of new transport and fleet

management technologies and closer cooperation

among the member countries of ECE in these

matters; Promoting river-sea navigation on the

waterways of France, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

The sea section of Don-Dnieper-Danube route is

already widely used by Ukrainian and Russian

combined river-sea navigation vessels, thanks to the

favourable navigation and hydro meteorological

conditions along the route during most of the year.

Both in Ukraine and in Russia, river-sea vessels

have basically been constructed in accordance with

the class rules set down in the register of inland

navigation vessels in the Russian Federation (the

Russian River Register), although there are also a

number of models of river-sea vessels which have

been built to classes of the Russian maritime register

and those of other classification societies.

Thought the closed circuit pan-European

waterway system lays also at western part of Europe,

the river-sea navigation does not have any tradition

there, except in Netherlands. The most of

classification organisations of Europe, Germanisher

Lloyd, Norske Veritas or Buro Veritas does not have

any vessel class designed for mixed river-sea

navigation. They have very sophisticated system of

classification, but only for river, or maritime vessels.

In the report of the standardization of ships and

inland waterways for river-sea navigation, the

Permanent International Association of Navigational

Congresses (PIANC) recommended the following

classes of vessels:

Table 1 Recommendation of basic dimensions of new

conception river-sea vessels

River-

sea class

Maximum permissible dimensions

of vessels

Air

clearance

(m)

Length

(m)

Beam

(m)

Draught

(m)

3.5 or 4.5

7 or 9.1

135

3.5 or 4.5

> 9.1

135

22.8

4.5

> 9.1

In fact, the Russian and Ukrainian vessel types

listed above correspond fairly closely to those

suggested by PIANC, although a draught of 4.5

metres is unacceptable for the inland waterways

along the route in question. Most of the river-sea

vessels operated in the Russian Federation and

Ukraine do not fully comply with all the height and

draught limitations on certain waterways along the

route of the future waterway ring around Europe.

Accordingly, there is a need to develop new types of

river-sea vessels with dimensions that meet the

requirements for navigation both along the

combined deep-water network of the European part

of Russia and the Dnieper, and along the Rhine-

Main-Danube route. (Klepoch & Žarnay, 2001)

6 CONCLUSIONS

Energy security is a key condition for the smooth

functioning of states and is essential for the

competitiveness of the economies of European

countries. One of the primary energy sources is

becoming a gas. Ensure its stable supply is one of

the most contentious issues currently.

Europe has an extensive network of inland

waterways that offer relatively inexpensive,

efficient, clean and reliable mode of transport.

Making more extensive use of LNG systems would

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enable European countries to take full advantage of

the rapidly growing global market of natural gas, to

make substantial long-term saving on their energy

bill and to optimize storage and back-up capacities

to compensate for shortages at peak times or to

minimize energy supply shortfalls. Countries with

well developed river and canal network, could

envisage the development of LNG transportation to

end users via inland waterways and thus creating a

virtual network of pipelines, which avoids

congestion and allows the LNG supply to urban

areas, where geographical, demographic or

environmental specificities are not suitable for the

traditional laying of pipelines.

REFERENCES

Chrz, V. 2009. Informace k problematice bezpečnosti přepravy

zkapalněného zemního plynu. In. Vodní cestya plavba 2:

28. Praha

Klepoch, J., Žarnay, P. 2001. Plavidlá pre dopravné technoló

gie "rieka - more" In. Komunikácie - vedecké listy Žilinskej

univerzity = Communications – scientific letters of the Uni

versity of Žilina. č. 1 (2001), p. 103- 112.

Klepoch, J., Žarnay, P. 1998. The advance trends of "river –

sea" transport Technologies enforcement in long distance

traverse In: Communications on the edge of the

millenniums : 10th international scientific conference. 5th

section, Quality and efficiency of transport, postal and

telecommunications services. - Žilina : University of Žilina,

1998. - ISBN 80-7100-520-7. - p. 203-206.

Melčák, M. 2010. Zlepšení energetické bezpečnosti Evropy

vyšším využitím zkapalněného zemního plynu. In.

Parliamentary Assembly AS/EC(2010)09

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