China’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has delivered the fourth and last LNG-powered bulk carrier it built for Taiwan’s shipowner U-Ming and charterer Anglo American.
The naming and delivery ceremony for the 190,000-dwt dual-fuel dry bulk carrier, Ubuntu Loyalty, was held on Wednesday, according to a statement by SWS.
With this, SWS completed the entire project which included building four LNG-powered vessels for U-Ming.
Anglo American started using the first vessel in this batch, Ubuntu Harmony, in January this year.
Back in September 2020, Anglo American signed a ten-year charter with U-Ming Marine Transport for these ships, introducing LNG into its chartered fleet for the first time.
Anglo American previously said that the fleet’s name, Ubuntu, selected via an internal employee competition, is the Zulu word meaning “humanity to others”.
The DNV-classified bulk carriers are about 299.8 meters long and 47.5 meters wide and feature MAN Energy Solutions’ high-pressure ME-GI engines.
China’s Gloryholder Liquefied Gas Machinery supplied its LNG fuel system for the four bulk carriers, including type C LNG fuel tanks.
According to SWS, the fuel gas endurance reaches 20,000 nautical miles, allowing the vessels to complete two round-trip routes from China to Australia or one round-trip route from China to Brazil.
Anglo American has in total ten LNG dual-fueled newbuild ships that it expects to introduce to its chartered fleet during the course of 2023 and 2024.
Besides these four ships, SWS is building six more vessels and recently delivered the 190,000-dwt LNG dual-fuel, Ubuntu Unity, to Greece’s Maran Dry Management.