The China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC) and French shipping group CMA CGM signed an order for 16 container ships worth a total of 21 billion yuan ($3.06 billion) in Beijing on Thursday.
The deal set the record for the largest single order involving the Chinese shipbuilding industry, according to the China Shipbuilding Trading Co., Ltd. (CSTC) under the CSSC.
The ship order includes building 12 container ships powered by dual-fuel methanol, which can carry 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), and four container ships powered by dual-fuel liquefied natural gas (LNG), which can carry 23,000 TEUs.
The methanol-powered container ships, which will be 366 meters long and 51 meters wide, will be able to transport 156,000 tonnes of cargo. These ships will be built by the CSSC’s two sub-branches in east China’s Shanghai Municipality and Dalian City, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, respectively, according to the CSTC.
The LNG-powered ships, each with a length of 399.9 meters and a width of 61.3 meters, will carry 220,000 tonnes of cargo.
CMA CGM has ordered over 70 high-value added vessels using green fuel from the CSSC over the past 10 years, including the world’s first LNG-powered 23,000 TEU container ship, said the CSTC.
