The ship will operate in Puerto Chacabuco, Aysén region, one of the southernmost terminals in the world.
Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP) and SAAM, through its tugboat division, SAAM Towage, have closed a service provision agreement that will allow Chile to be the first country in Latin America to have an electric maritime tugboat and -therefore- zero emissions.
The ship will operate in Puerto Chacabuco, Aysén region, one of the southernmost terminals in the world, where it will provide berthing and unberthing services for ENAP vessels, without emitting greenhouse gases and significantly reducing environmental and underwater noise.
The Minister of Energy, Diego Pardow, stressed that "the fact that ENAP will have this unprecedented service in Latin America, will allow it to reduce the emissions of its operation, which is in line with our country's commitment to move towards carbon neutrality by 2050 or earlier," said the Secretary of State.
ENAP's chief executive, Julio Friedmann, said that "the implementation of this new technology in our processes forms part of our objective as a company to be more sustainable every day and advance towards decarbonization. This milestone is in addition to the transportation services with LNG-powered trucks that we contracted last year. This is in line with our conviction, as a state-owned company, to enhance public-private cross-cutting efforts to move as a society to the use of different types of energy."
Meanwhile, SAAM's chief executive, Macario Valdés, emphasized the long-standing relationship with ENAP, "we share the vision of advancing in sustainability, so we see this agreement as a key step to addressing the challenge of climate change with concrete actions to reduce emissions. SAAM aspires to become the global leader in the tugboat industry, and pioneering actions in technologies like these, with innovative solutions for our customers, will allow us to continue delivering services focused on safety and efficiency and to move towards more sustainable operations."
The new unit is expected to be operating in the country within the next 18 months.