Shell International Trading and Shipping (Shell) is upgrading the navigation systems on several liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers with new-generation bridge electronics from Northrop Grumman. The new navigation systems are being installed on four LNG carriers managed by Shell for Bonny Gas Transport, a fully owned shipping subsidiary of Nigeria LNG Ltd. (NLNG); Northrop Grumman's Sperry Marine business unit is supplying the systems and performing the installations.
The ships being upgraded are LNG Finima, LNG Lagos, LNG Port Harcourt and LNG Bonny. Each is being fitted with Sperry Marine VisionMaster FT X-band and S-band radars and two electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS). The dual ECDIS installations provide built-in redundancy, meeting the International Maritime Organization requirements for sailing without paper nautical charts. Two of the ships — LNG Bonny and LNG Port Harcourt — are also being fitted with dual Sperry Marine fibre optic gyro systems.
Shell is also placing orders with Sperry Marine for similar retrofits of radar and ECDIS navigation systems on the tanker Helix and two other LNG carriers in the Australia LNG Ship Operating Company (ALSOC) fleet, NW Sandpiper and NW Seaeagle.
The Bonny Gas Transport LNG ships primarily trade on the Nigeria-Europe route while the ALSOC ships are on the Australia-Japan run.
Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide.
