Babcock LGE, a specialist marine engineering business, is launching ecoAPEX™ (Advanced Performance Extraction), an enhanced reliquefaction architecture designed to improve efficiency, performance and cost by making better use of energy already onboard fuel carrying vessels.
Dual-fuel gas carriers face an inherent inefficiency: Energy is used to cool boil-off gas back to liquid while at the same time fuel is heated to the temperature required by the vessel’s engines. ecoAPEX™ consolidates these opposing energy demands, allowing the vessel to recover more value from energy.
Combined with modern, higher-capacity compression technology, this integrated architecture delivers a simpler, higher-performance cargo and fuel system.
At design conditions* for LPG/Ammonia carriers, ecoAPEX™ can improve reliquefaction efficiency by up to 33%, cut reliquefaction energy consumption by around 25% and reduce loading and cooldown times by 14%. That means lower operating cost, lower emissions, and improved cargo operations.
For Ultra Large Ethane Carriers (ULEC), the additional capacity can go further, allowing an entire reliquefaction and refrigeration system to be removed from the system design. This can reduce CAPEX, installation complexity, footprint, and maintenance requirements.
Importantly, ecoAPEX™ achieves these gains without adding rotating machinery. It combines proven compressor technology with conventional heat exchange, while preserving the independent operability of the cargo and fuel systems.
Neale Campbell, Managing Director of Babcock LGE, said: “The biggest opportunities in maritime engineering are not always about adding more equipment. Sometimes they come from looking differently at what is already happening onboard.
“With ecoAPEX™, we asked a simple question: A vessel is already warming its fuel and cooling its cargo condensate, so what if we integrate them?
“The result is a new approach that makes existing energy flows work better. It can significantly reduce the energy required for reliquefaction, increase system performance and, in some vessel designs, remove equipment altogether. That is exactly what we mean by extracting more value from every voyage.”
ecoAPEX™ is the next step in Babcock LGE’s approach to liquefied gas system design, building on six decades of engineering experience and more than 650 reference systems.
That evolution can be seen across successive generations of Babcock LGE technology. ecoVGC®, introduced in 2012, extended the capability and efficiency of conventional LPG reliquefaction and has since been installed on more than 200 vessels. ecoFGSS® then introduced LPG fuel gas supply systems to the market, with an integrated design, reducing interfaces between cargo handling, fuel supply, and propulsion.
With ecoFGSS-FLEX®, that integration was developed further to meet today’s LPG fuel requirements, while preserving a pathway to future ammonia capability. For ethane carriers, SuperCooler™ and ecoETHN® have applied the same systems-thinking approach to cargo conditioning, reliquefaction and productive use of boil-off gas.
ecoAPEX™ brings those strands together at system level. By combining cargo handling, fuel supply, modern compressor technology and Babcock LGE’s proprietary process technologies as one integrated system, it builds on proven technology foundations to improve overall vessel performance, energy integration and through-life value.
Ends
Notes to editor
* The quoted performance figures are based on carriage of commercial propane (5mol% ethane in the liquid phase) at 36°C seawater temperature and simultaneous reliquefaction and fuel demand.
About Babcock LGE
Babcock LGE is a specialist marine engineering business delivering cargo handling, reliquefaction and fuel-gas systems for the liquefied gas industry. For six decades, it has combined engineering expertise, proprietary technology and deep industry understanding to solve complex gas-handling challenges across the world’s gas fleet.
From its UK engineering base, Babcock LGE develops and supports integrated systems designed to improve vessel performance, flexibility and through-life capability. Its technologies are engineered to perform today, while creating the capability to meet the evolving requirements of tomorrow.
