Hey, there! Log in / Register
Temporary addition to the Boston skyline
By adamg on Fri, 02/10/2023 - 1:50pm
Adam Castiglioni was walking down State Street this morning when he looked up and saw a gigantic ship in Boston Harbor. It was the Iberica Knutsen, a Norwegian LNG tanker that had probably pumped out a huge load of LNG along Chelsea Creek and was now heading back across the Atlantic, or perhaps to Trinidad and Tobago, to pick up some more.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Loved the view from Long Wharf
A few years ago I worked on a project at Long Wharf and I used to love to see these huge ships sail by.
Fun photo - thank you for sharing.
Aw, missed it!
I work on the corner of Atlantic and Congress, and I love spending my lunch hours, watching all of the tankers go by from one of our conference rooms. That, and watching the planes take off, I feel like a little kid again.
That same ship was in the
That same ship was in the Boston harbor in September
Why are they still doing this?
I thought they built an offshore terminal, to avoid the risk and inconvenience of squeezing these giant ships up Chelsea Creek, and closing all the bridges and shipping channels in the process.
Yeah, well
Although construction started in 2008 and it was completed a few years later, the bottom dropped out of the market in 2013 and the terminal got mothballed after a few small shipments.
https://www.telegram.com/story/business/2013/01/23/costly-north-shore-ln...
Not sure if the owner ever intends to operate it now. They asked to extend the suspension of operations last summer https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/29/2022-13906/deepwate...
So why didn't they use one of
So why didn't they use one of the two offshore terminals for this shipment? Would it take some work to get them operational again? Or was this gas for the electric plant in Everett, which can only get gas delivered directly?
Probably because there's not
Probably because there's not enough money in restarting the terminal to make it worth the while of the people who own it, who are probably not the same people who own the tanker.
We're lucky it's been a warm winter
That tanker could have carried its load to a terminal in the UK or Spain.
Massachusetts has some of the highest natural gas prices in the US because we don't have enough pipeline capacity to supply winter demand from domestic sources, of which there are plenty. So in the winter we rely on LNG cargoes from (mostly) Trinidad, which exposes us to global prices.
Given that we've eliminated coal and mostly eliminated nuclear, the New England electrical grid is now extremely dependent on NG. I worry a lot about stability, and pricing, at least until we have grid-scale storage for renewables.
Magoo sez
Over the last four score years Magoo has been hard at work on an energy devise invention. Magoo’s invention is nearly complete. Magoo’s invention harnesses one’s toot from one’s toot maker and converts the toots into electricity. Magoo’s house for example runs entirely on Magoo’s and Mrs. Magoo’s toots. Magoo is currently working on a conversion devise for Magoo’s car. Magoo is filing a patent soon and Magoo’s toot to electricity invention is sure to change the world. Magoo.
LNG goes to Everett
Even though there are now two offshore terminals that were built 10+ years ago. I'm not sure if they have ever been used more than a few times.
aka Homeland Security event
Coast Guard, State and Boston Police and Fire maritime units mobilized.
Radiant heat from a fire would cause a lot of shoreside damage