''Gastor'' and ''Nestor'' were two

LNG carrier An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). Overview The first oceangoing liquified natural gas tanker in the world was '' Methane Pioneer'', which entered service in 1959 with a carrying capacity of ...

s built at the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

shipyard

Chantiers de l'Atlantique Chantiers de l'Atlantique is a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire, France. It is one of the world's largest shipyards, constructing a wide range of commercial, naval, and passenger ships. It is located near Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire, ...

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Oc ...

. Although delivered in 1976 both ships only entered real service in 1993, after their sale to Bonny Gas Transport Bermuda Shell, a subsidiary of Nigeria LNG Limited. Under their original names (''Gastor'' and ''Nestor''), the ships never transported any cargo.Helderline website o
LNG Lagos
visited 10 December 2010Short history o

om Bluefunnel website

History

When first built in 1976–1977, the ships were

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...

s owned by different companies: the Dutch

Nedlloyd Nedlloyd was a Dutch shipping company, formed in 1970 as the result of a merger of several shipping lines: *Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (SMN) *Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (KRL) *Koninklijke Java-China-Paketvaart-Lijnen (KJCPL) *Vereen ...

and US based Ocean. They were built at the

shipyard of St. Nazaire, France. After completion they did not go into service for nearly two decades and were both laid-up for years in the Scottish

Loch Striven Loch Striven () is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The loch meets the Firth of Clyde and the Kyles of Bute just north of the Isle of Bute, and forms a narrow inlet about long extending north into the Cowal Peninsula. The hamlet of ...

as there was insufficient

work Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physical work done by humans ** House work, housework, or homemaking ** Working animal, an ani ...

for them to cause their owners to place them into operation into the LNG transport market. A few years after completion it was discovered that there was a construction error in the

insulation Insulation may refer to: Thermal * Thermal insulation, use of materials to reduce rates of heat transfer ** List of insulation materials ** Building insulation, thermal insulation added to buildings for comfort and energy efficiency *** Insulated ...

of the huge gas-tanks. These

s store their cargo at near

atmospheric pressure Atmospheric pressure, also known as air pressure or barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1,013. ...

and this requires that the gas is cooled down to the boiling temperature of LNG: . The cargo is at this temperature when loaded and then the temperature is maintained at this level using insulated tanks and, over time, some of the gas

vaporizes Vaporization (or vapo(u)risation) of an element or compound is a phase transition from the liquid phase to vapor. There are two types of vaporization: evaporation and boiling. Evaporation is a surface phenomenon, whereas boiling is a bulk phenomen ...

which keeps the cargo cool despite the (intentionally low) incoming

heat flux In physics and engineering, heat flux or thermal flux, sometimes also referred to as heat flux density, heat-flow density or heat-flow rate intensity, is a flow of energy per unit area per unit time (physics), time. Its SI units are watts per sq ...

from the surrounding environment in the ship and the ocean. Both ships returned to the shipyard for repairs and then returned to storage in Loch Striven as there was still no work for them. The building costs of each ship was €60 million; they were sold in 1991 for approximately €15 million each and came in service around 1993. At the time these ships were the largest ships ever built at the Chantier d'Atlantique shipyard and a special large

drydock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

was built for this project. After the completion of several large tankers in the 1970s this drydock was not used again until the yard was commissioned to build the new ocean liner by

Cunard The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...

''Gastor''

''Gastor'' was built for the Dutch company ''Nederlandse Scheepvaart Unie'', part of the shipping-company

. (Later Nedlloyd and P&O joined forces and formed

P&O Nedlloyd P&O Nedlloyd Container Line Limited was an Anglo-Dutch worldwide ocean-going Containerization, container shipping line, with dual headquarters in London and Rotterdam. The company was formed in 1997 by the merger of the container-shipping inter ...

specializing in

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

ping until this company was sold to A. P. Moller-Maersk Group or

Maersk (), usually known simply as Maersk ( ), is a Danish Freight transport, shipping and logistics company founded in 1904 by Arnold Peter Møller and his father Peter Mærsk Møller. Maersk's business activities include Port operator, port operat ...

for short). The construction-number for the yard was 26 and the

IMO number The IMO number of the International Maritime Organization is a generic term with two distinct applications: * the IMO ship identification number is a unique ship identifier; or, * the IMO company and registered owner identification number is u ...

is 7360124. The ship was built to transport LNG from the newly discovered gas-fields in

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

to the West-European markets via the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

port of

Delfzijl Delfzijl (; ) is a city and former municipality (which now belongs to the municipality of Eemsdelta) with a population of 25,651 in the province of Groningen in the northeast of the Netherlands. Delfzijl was a sluice between the Delf and the Em ...

. Due to economic development at the time and the after effects of the

1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...

this project never materialized and after completion the ship was laid up in

LNG ''Lagos''

In 1993 ''Gastor'' was sold and renamed LNG ''Lagos'' and finally entered service under the new owner Bonny Gas Transport -

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

Bermuda. The ship carries cargo for that company to and from

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. Before entering service the -now- LNG ''Lagos'' was fitted with a new bridge system by Litton Marine services (part of

Sperry Marine Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine is a part of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. Through various mergers, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine was built out of companies including Decca Radars, Sperry Marine, and C. Plath and Litton Industries. The com ...

) at the Sobrena shipyard in Brest (now Damen Shipyard). The last registered position of the ship was registered in 2015 in the

Java Sea The Java Sea (, ) is an extensive shallow sea on the Sunda Shelf, between the Indonesian islands of Borneo to the north, Java to the south, Sumatra to the west, and Sulawesi to the east. Karimata Strait to its northwest links it to the South Ch ...

and since then no further AIS positions were registered. It was reported sold to Sinokor Merchant Marine before being scrapped in 2018. At the time it was the oldest LNG carrier afloat.

MV ''Nestor''

MV ''Nestor'' was commissioned by shipping-company

Ocean Group Ocean Group may refer to: * Ocean Group International, holding company * Ocean Group plc, former British transport company * Ocean Productions, Canadian media company {{Disambiguation ...

from Liverpool. This ship was built to transport gas from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

to the United States but suffered the same fate as ''Gastor'': being laid-up in Loch Striven between 1976–1993, except for a quick return to the shipyard in the mid 1980s when a construction/design error was being repaired. Similar to the Gastor, the isolation of the main gas tanks was not built according to the design and was repaired by the shipyard. ''Nestor'' had yard-number B26 and the

was 7360136.HelderLine website o
LNG Port Harcourt
visited 11 December 2010

''LNG Port Harcourt''

Just like ''Gastor'', ''Nestor'' was also sold to Shell Bermuda/Bonny Gas Transport and was renamed to ''LNG Port Harcourt''. ''LNG Port Harcourt'' was also used for the

Shell Nigeria Shell Nigeria is the common name for Shell plc's Nigerian operations carried out through four subsidiaries—primarily Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC). Royal Dutch Shell's joint ventures account for more than 21% of ...

project in Nigeria until being put up for sale in 2015. It was briefly renamed the ''LNG East Energy'' after sale. Along with its sister ship, it was scrapped in 2018.

References