HGK Shipping has officially named its new diesel-electric gas tanker Gas 96 at a ceremony in Rotterdam on Thursday.

The 110 m vessel is HGK’s third gas tanker for inland waterway transportation and is alternative-fuel ready, HGK said in a statement on its website on Friday.

It will operate on Rhine routes between Rotterdam, Antwerp and Cologne under a long-term charter with chemical firm LyondellBasell.

The Gas 96 has four tanks with a total cargo capacity of 3,256 m3.

The firm says the vessel is designed with provisions to allow future retrofitting to run on alternative fuels such as methanol. 

“The ‘GAS 96’ is not just a tanker for the present time, but also one for the future,” Anke Bestmann, managing director of HGK Gas Shipping, said.

“Goods that will need to be transported in the future, such as ammonia, and fuel systems that are just being developed, such as methanol, have already been taken into consideration with this vessel design.”