Netherlands-based dredging specialist Van Oord has recently finished coastal maintenance work along the Dutch coast, with its LNG-fuelled hopper dredger Vox Apolonia running on 100% bio-LNG for the entire campaign. The company described the work in an update on its website earlier this month.
Under a contract with Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands’ public works agency, the vessel placed about 1 million cubic metres of sand on Banjaard beach in Noord-Beveland.
In a statement issued in September, Van Oord said that no previous coastal maintenance work in the Netherlands had been carried out by a dredger powered entirely by bio-LNG.
Bio-LNG, produced from organic waste, is presented as a cleaner alternative to fossil LNG. Its chemical properties are the same as conventional LNG, enabling it to be used on existing LNG-fuelled vessels without any technical modifications.
According to Van Oord, the bio-LNG used on Vox Apolonia was supplied through the company’s Green Fuel Fund, set up in late 2024 to ease cost barriers faced by its clients.