After recently commissioning the world’s largest ethane carrier, Ineos has taken an industry lead once more with plans to build the biggest butane river barges ever used in Europe.                  

The Swiss-headquartered group has contracted Imperial Logistics to design and build the barges, which will link the butane tank being built at Oiltanking’s site in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, with Ineos’s site in Cologne, Germany, enabling the cracker to receive large volumes of butane feedstock.

“This agreement represents a further step in a strategic investment in the future of our naphtha crackers in Cologne,” said Ineos Trading & Shipping’s director, Hugh Carmichael. He said the new butane tank in Antwerp and the Imperial butane river barges will provide the group with increased flexibility and security of supply that will significantly improve its competitiveness in Europe, along with positioning it in global LPG markets.

The barges will move about 3,000 t of butane each, which Ineos said is about three times more than current barges move on the Rhine system. Shipyards to build the new barges will be selected in the near future with the vessels going into operation in 2019.

Headquartered in Duisburg, Germany, Imperial Logistics is a wholly owned subsidiary of South Africa’s Imperial Holdings and responsible for all business outside Africa.

Last month, Ineos agreed a deal with Singapore’s SP Chemicals to ship ethane from the US to China, providing feedstock for a new gas cracker that is currently under construction in Taixing. The ethane carrier will transport the gas under a supply deal that starts in 2019.