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The project to convert the Wessels Reederei-operated Wes Amelie to operate on LNG has been officially completed, MAN Diesel & Turbo has confirmed.

At a recent event at the Hamburg offices of MAN Diesel & Turbo, Dr Uwe Lauber, CEO of MAN Diesel & Turbo, presented Gerd Wessels, Managing Owner of Wessels Reederei, with a take-over certificate marking the formal conclusion of the LNG conversion project.

The project involved the retrofitting of the 1,036-TEU feeder container ship's MAN 8L48/60B main engine to a multi-fuel, four-stroke MAN 51/60DF unit for dual-fuel operation - the first ever conversion of its type.

According to MAN Diesel, the dual-fuel conversion has enabled the Wes Amelie to significantly reduce its SOx emissions by more than 99%, NOx by approximately 90%, and CO2 by up to 20%. The vessel is now said to meet both the Tier II and Tier III emission requirements set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

The conversion was carried out at German Dry Docks AG in Bremerhaven in cooperation with gas specialist TGE Marine Engineering, who provided the 490-cubic-metre LNG tank and LNG components. Bureau Veritas, meanwhile, was responsible for classing the conversion.

Wessels Reederei and MAN Diesel & Turbo originally signed the retrofit contract with MAN Diesel & Turbo in November 2015. The Wes Amelie was constructed in 2011 and has already re-entered service on its usual route between the North and Baltic Seas.

The 10,585-gross-tonne (grt) Wes Amelie currently operates in the North and Baltic Seas; it has 23 sister ships - 16 of them are structurally identical, which would allow follow-up projects to be easily implemented.

Christian Hoepfner, General Manager of Wessels Reederei, remarked: "The Wes Amelie operates in the highly regulated Nordic and Baltic Seas. Since they are both within Emission Control Areas, the ship needs to meet the highest environmental standards and strictest limits for emissions. By converting to a low emission fuel, we are safeguarding the future of this container ship as well as our own competitiveness in the market."

Stefan Eefting, Head of MAN PrimeServ in Augsburg, said: "We trust that the dramatic reduction in emissions will mark the beginning of a trend towards the adoption of LNG as an environmentally friendly fuel within the maritime sector."

Lauber added: "By providing customers with the technology to retrofit their existing fleet, we are driving what we call the maritime energy transition. There are roughly 40,000 cargo vessels in operation worldwide. If we are serious about decarbonisation and want the shipping industry to be climate neutral by 2050, we need to take action today."