French shipping group CMA CGM is to take delivery of its first ultra large LNG-powered containership following completion of the vessels’ gas trials.
The CMA CGM Jacques Saade returned to the Shanghai Jiangnan-Changxing Shipyard, a part of China’s Hudong-Zhonghua, on Monday, its AIS data shows.
To remind, Hudong’s Jiagnan launched the 23,000 TEU LNG-powered containership in August 2019 and the vessel completed sea trials end March.
CMA CGM will take delivery of the ship during September, after it will depart to Europe.
The vessel will serve the Europe-Asia route and will bunker LNG from the MOL-owned and Total-chartered Gas Agility that arrived off Rotterdam during the weekend.
Hudong and Jiangnan Shipyard, both CSSC-owned, are building in total nine LNG-powered sister vessels for the French container shipping group.
All of the containerships will be 400 meters long and 61 meters wide, making them them the world’s largest vessels powered by LNG.
The ships will feature WinGD’s dual-fuel engines and GTT’s 18,600-cbm fuel tank, both largest ever built.
CMA CGM previously said it expects to take delivery of all of these LNG-powered giants by the first half of 2021.
Once delivered, they will all work on the Europe-Asia route.
The shipping group aims to have in total 20 LNG-powered vessels in its fleet by 2022 as it looks to comply with the new IMO standards and slash emissions.
This includes five Eastern Pacific Shipping’s 15,000 TEU containerships and six smaller vessels of 1,400 TEU.
