Reprinted from AVEC

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA – Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC) is holding a blessing and christening ceremony for its two new tugs and barges on May 31^st, 2012 in Dillingham, Alaska at the Scandinavian Beach. The public is welcome to attend this event, which starts at 1:00.

The two identical tugs, the M/V Naniq and the M/V Cavek, have names that represent some of AVEC’s culturally-diverse membership. Naniq is the Inupiat word for source of light and Cavek is a Yupik word for harpoon or metal. The barge names denote the length of these identical vessels: AVEC-208 and AVEC-183. The vessels start delivering fuel and cargo to AVEC’s communities this season.

“As a non-profit electric cooperative established by its membership to provide energy service at the lowest practical cost, the AVEC board felt very strongly that bringing competition to the fuel market through these state-of-the-art vessels was a step in the right direction,” said Charlie Curtis, AVEC’s Board Chairman. “Scarcely eighteen months later, these vessels are actualizing the board’s vision.”

These shallow-draft fuel vessels use an “Articulated Tug and Barge” (ATB) design that provides increased maneuverability in Alaska’s shallow rivers along with a substantial increase in fuel efficiency. They were built by Sneed Shipbuilding in Channelview, Texas and are operated and maintained by Vitus Marine, LLC.

Alaska Village Electric Cooperative is a member-owned, non-profit cooperative that provides electric power to more than 7,900 consumers in 54 Alaskan villages.

Vitus Marine is an Alaskan-owned company specializing in meeting the marine transportation and fuel distribution needs of Western Alaska maritime communities (www.vitusmarine.com).

For more information contact: Amy Murphy at (907) 565-5343 or e-mail amurphy@avec.org