CMA CGM took delivery of its new flagship
CMA CGM Antoine de Saint Exupery on Friday.
The vessel, which is now the world's biggest containership, measures 400 metres long and 59 metres wide, has a 20,600-TEU capacity and includes a number of bunker-saving features.
The ship's engine is said to "significantly" reduce fuel consumption and lower CO2 emissions by an average
three percent.
Additionally, the Becker Twisted Fin installed aboard the ship is designed to improve propeller performance, helping to reduce energy costs with a
four percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
The CMA CGM Antoine de Saint Exupery is due to enter into service on
February 6 on the French Asia Line 1 (FAL 1) service, which connects Northern Europe to Asia. The line offers a weekly service to 16 ports of call over 84 days.
LNG-powered mega-ships
In November,
CMA CGM ordered nine 22,000-TEU ships which are set to be the first ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs) to be fuelled by LNG.
Whilst the nine boxships will be LNG-powered, "a few percent of marine gas oil" will also be used for the ignition in the combustion chamber, CMA explained last year.
Each of the nine ships will have a bunker storage capacity of
18,600 cubic metres (cbm). LNG tank specialist
GTT, shipbuilder
China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and certification agency
Bureau Veritas all worked on examining the feasibility of the bunker tank design.
The nine ULCVs will be powered by
Winterthur Gas & Diesel (WinGD) 92-centimetre-bore, dual-fuel low-speed engines.
Supplier
Total has already
reached an agreement to supply CMA CGM with
300,000 tonnes of LNG a year for
10 years, starting in 2020, in a deal that covers the nine giant newbuild boxships.
