French shipping group CMA CGM is to take delivery of its third ultra-large LNG-powered containership, two months month after it welcomed the flagship Jacques Saade.
LNG Prime understands that China State Shipbuilding Corporation’s Hudong-Zhonghua will deliver the CMA CGM Palais Royal to the owner on November 27.
This is the second 23,000 TEU LNG-powered giant for Hudong that also built the flagship Jacques Saade.
To remind, Jiangnan Shipyard delivered CMA CGM Champs Elysees on October 27. This containership is the second vessel in a batch of nine LNG-powered ships.
Hudong is building five vessels while Jiangnan Shipyard is constructing four ships from this batch.
The first vessel Jaques Saade is on its maiden voyage to Europe and recently left the Dutch port of Rotterdam. There, the vessel completed the world’s largest LNG bunkering operation with Gas Agility.
Jacues Saade is 400 meters long and 61 meters wide, such as its sister vessels will be, making them the world’s largest vessels powered by LNG.
Furthermore, 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.