French shipping group CMA CGM has taken delivery of another ultra-large LNG-powered containership which will serve its Europe-Asia route.
Chinese shipbuilder Hudong-Zhonghua held a naming ceremony for the 23,000 TEU CMA CGM Concorde on Tuesday while the official delivery ceremony will also take place later during the day.
Concorde is the fourth out of five vessels Hudong is building for France’s CMA CGM while CSSC’s Jiangnan Shipyard is constructing four ULCVs in this batch of nine world’s largest LNG-powered vessels.
To remind, Hudong said last month the LNG-powered ULCV wrapped up gas trials on March 15 in “record” six days for the series.
The entire project is nearing the end as the two Chinese yard have only one vessel to deliver, each. Jiangnan will soon hand over Trocadero to CMA CGM while Hudong will deliver Sorbonne.
All of the ships feature WinGD’s dual-fuel engines and GTT’s 18,600-cbm fuel tank.
In addition, the LNG-powered giants are 400 meters long and 61 meters wide.
CMA CGM is heavily investing in LNG as fuel and plans to have 32 LNG-powered vessels in its fleet by 2022.
These include the nine ULCVs and five 15,000 TEU ships on order in China.
CMA CGM has also chartered 15,000 TEU LNG-powered vessels from Singapore’s Eastern Pacific Shipping but also owns smaller vessels.
The firm is also looking to order additional LNG-powered vessels in China this year.
