Thursday, March 7, 2019

Container Shipping: "MAN Hired for World’s First Megaship Conversion to LNG Fuel"

I am not familiar with this "Megaship" nomenclature. ULCS or ULCV but not the "Megaship.

Hong Kong's Orient Overseas Container Line is currently running the largest capacity container ships at 21,400 TEU with a couple of COSCO's ships also over 21,000 TEU.
CMA CGM's flagship, the Antoine de Saint Exupery clocks in with  capacity of 20,950 TEU and Maersk has a fleet over 20,000 TEUs.
Those might be "Megaships". And the 23,350 TEU behemoths that MSC has on order definitely would have to be.

Anyway, on to gCaptain who know more about this stuff than I do:
MAN Energy Solutions has signed a contract for the conversion of a 15,000 TEU container vessel to dual-fuel LNG operation.

The container vessel MV SAJIR is owned by Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s leading liner shipping companies, and normally serves a route from Asia to northern Europe via the Suez canal. The pilot project will entail the conversion of an existing, HFO-burning MAN B&W 9S90ME-C engine to a dual-fuel MAN B&W ME-GI (-Gas Injection) prime mover capable of running on HFO and LNG.
The retrofit will take place at the Chinese Hudong/HRDD shipyard, specialized in ship repair and conversion.

Hapag-Lloyd announced last month it will retrofit its 15,000 TEU ‘megaship’ Sajir to cleaner burning LNG fuel, becoming the first in the world to convert a ship of this size to LNG propulsion.
“We are seeing great interest in this project from the industry as a whole,” said Wayne Jones OBE, Chief Sales Officer and Member of the Executive Board at MAN Energy Solutions. “This is an excellent showcase for the conversion of a mega-container vessel to LNG and the potential benefits for the market is huge. With this announcement, MAN Energy Solutions is once again at the forefront of technology with our ability to execute LNG conversions for both four-stroke and two-stroke engines.”

Using LNG in the shipping industry could reduce CO2 emissions by 15 to 20 percent and sulphur dioxide and particulate matter by more than 90 percent....MORE
So yes, definitely a big deal but when I saw "Megaship" I must confess I wasn't thinking containers.
More like this:


http://www.maritimeherald.com/wp-content/uploads/Batillus-Top-10-Biggest-Ships-2017.jpg
   Batillus class tanker, 555,000 DWT.
 That is Mega.