French shipping group CMA CGM is due to take delivery of another ultra large LNG-powered containership, some four months after it welcomed the flagship Jacques Saade.
China State Shipbuilding Corporation’s Jiangnan Shipyard has already completed the CMA CGM Louvre and the giant vessel is ready for handover.
LNG Prime understands that the state-owned yard plans to host a delivery ceremony this week.
This is the second 23,000 TEU LNG-powered giant for Jiangnan that also built the CMA CGM Champs Elysees.
Jiangnan and Hudong-Zhonghua, both owned by CSSC, are building in total nine LNG-powered sister vessels for the French group.
Hudong is building five vessels while Jiangnan Shipyard is constructing four ships from this batch.
Furthermore, Hudong delivered the flagship Jacques Saade and the third vessel in this batch, Palais Royal.
The Shanghai yard plans to deliver the fifth vessel, CMA CGM Rivoli, in January.
All of the ships will be 400 meters long and 61 meters wide, making them the world’s largest vessels powered by LNG.
Additionally, the ships feature WinGD’s dual-fuel engines and GTT’s 18,600-cbm fuel tank, both largest ever built. This LNG tank will allow these giants to make a round-trip on the Asia-Europe route with a single fill.
CMA CGM previously said it expects to take delivery of all of the 23,000 TEU vessels by the first half of 2021.
Once delivered, they will work on the Europe-Asia route.
The shipping group aims to have in total 26 LNG-powered vessels in its fleet by 2022 as it looks to comply with the new IMO standards and slash emissions.
These include chartered Eastern Pacific Shipping’s 15,000 TEU containerships and smaller vessels of 1,400 TEU.