Posted on September 2, 2026
By Adis Ajdin
Titan Clean Fuels has struck a long-term deal with France’s Sogestran for a new 6,000 cu m LNG bunkering vessel, giving the Molgas-owned fuel supplier dedicated ship-to-ship capacity in the western Mediterranean.
The vessel will be owned by Sogestran and built at Nantong CIMC Sinopacific Offshore & Engineering in China under a contract firmed last month. Titan and Sogestran have jointly developed the ship around the operating constraints of Mediterranean ports and LNG terminals.
Titan said it intends to deploy the newbuilding across the western Mediterranean, loading LNG at several regional terminals and supplying LNG and liquefied biomethane, or bio-LNG, in major ports including Fos-Marseille, Barcelona and Genoa.
The ship will also handle gas-up and cooldown work for LNG-fuelled vessels. Its low-air-draft design is intended to allow direct bunkering of cruise ships without the need for an intermediate pontoon. The bunker vessel itself will be capable of running on LNG and bio-LNG.
Neither the length of the charter, shipbuilding price nor delivery date has been disclosed.
The new arrangement puts commercial employment behind an order that first surfaced at Posidonia in June, when Sogestran signed a letter of intent with CIMC SOE for the 6,000 cu m vessel. That was converted into a firm shipbuilding contract in August, with the Chinese yard initially identifying its customer only as a European owner.
Sogestran brings an established bunker operation in the region. The Le Havre-based group has supplied conventional marine fuels around Marseille, Spain and Algeria for decades, while its LNG Shipping joint venture with Victrol already operates two LNG bunker barges chartered to Shell in northwest Europe.
Its latest LNG newbuild comes alongside a separate conventional and low-carbon bunker fleet renewal programme in southern France. As previously reported by Splash, Sogestran subsidiary Maritima has two 4,500 cu m ships under construction at China Merchants Industry Yangzhou Dingheng for Petroineos, replacing three ageing units serving Fos, Marseille and Toulon.
Titan has also been steadily building out its controlled bunker tonnage. Earlier this year, the company added the 8,000 cu m United LNG I on charter for operations across Zeebrugge, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp. The vessel joined two owned FlexFuelers and other chartered tonnage capable of handling LNG and bio-LNG.
The expansion also takes Titan deeper into a Mediterranean market where it has already been supplying LNG and bio-LNG but without the same dedicated vessel coverage it has built in northwest Europe. Molgas already has truck-to-ship and other downstream LNG distribution infrastructure in the region, with the Sogestran vessel adding a dedicated ship-to-ship leg.
