The MV Gastor and the MV Nestor were two LNG carriers built at the French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique in St. Nazaire. The two ships are sister-ships.
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The ships were sister-ships owned by different companies: Nedlloyd and Ocean. They were built in 1976-1977 at the Chantier d'Atlantique shipyard of St. Nazaire. After completion they never came into service and were both laid-up for years in the Scottish loch Loch Striven as there was no work for them.[1]
A few years after the completion it was discovered that there was a construction error in the insulation of the huge gas-tanks. These LNG carriers store their cargo at near atmospheric pressure and this requires that the gas is cooled down to the boiling temperature of LNG: −162 °C (−260 °F). The cargo was at this temperature when loaded and then the temperature was maintained on this level using very good isolated tanks and slowly let some of the gas vaporize. Both ships returned to the shipyard for these repairs and then returned to the loch as there was still no work for them. The tonnage of the ships is 68.122 [2] The building-costs of each ship was approx. € 60 million while they were sold in 1991 for approx.€15 million[1] and came in service around 1993[2]
At the time these ships were the largest ships ever built at the shipyward and they built a special large drydock for this project. After the completion of both ships this drydock was never used again until the yard was commissioned to build the new ocean-liner RMS Queen Mary 2 by Cunard.[3]
The Gastor was built for the Dutch company Nederlandse Scheepvaart Unie, part of the shipping-company Nedlloyd. (Later Nedlloyd and P&O joined forces and formed P&O Nedlloyd specializing in container shipping until this company was sold to A. P. Moller-Maersk Group or Maerks for short).
The construction-number for the yard was 26 and the (current) IMO number is 7360124[2]
The ship was built to transport LNG from the newly discovered gas-fields in Algeria to the West-European markets via the Dutch port of Delfzijl. Due to economic development at the time and the after effects of the 1973 oil crisis his project never materialized.
In 1993 the Gastor was sold and renamed to LNG Lagos and finally enetered service. The new owner is Bonny Gas Transport - Shell Bermuda and in service for that same company[2] to and from Nigeria
The Nestor was commissioned by shipping-company Ocean Group from Liverpool. This ship was built to transport gas from Indonesia to the United States but suffered the same fate as the Gastor. The Nestor had yard-number B26 and the IMO number is 7360136.[4]
Just like the Gastor the Nestor was also sold to Shell Bermuda/Bonny Gas Transport and was renamed to LNG Port Harcourt. The LNG Port Harcourt is also used for the Shell Nigeria project in Nigeria[4]