Modern Weipu Shipbuilding Delivers Dafei's First New Generation Dual Fuel Regional Ship
On February 15th, the first LNG dual fuel 2000TEU container ship "Mermaid" built by Hyundai Oupu Shipbuilding in South Korea for Daffy Shipping in France was delivered and put into operation. It will depart from Busan, South Korea for northern Europe.
This is the first of a series of 10 LNG dual fuel branch ships ordered by DaFei at Hyundai Oita Shipbuilding. The series of ships is planned to be delivered between February 2024 and January 2025, mainly for short distance cargo transportation in the Nordic and Mediterranean regions. Among them, 6 ships will join the Nordic internal route between April and July, departing from Hamburg and Bremen ports to provide services to Baltic and Scandinavian ports. The other 4 ships will join the Mediterranean route from the end of September to the end of November.
This series of next-generation container ships was designed in close collaboration with Chantier del 'Atlantis and Odense Marine Technology (OMT), a Danish engineering company. The French engineering company GTT participated in the design and conceptualization project of an LNG fuel storage tank and gas chain with a total capacity of 1053 cubic meters.
The new container ship adopts original designs aimed at improving energy efficiency and environmental performance, with the core of optimizing energy efficiency. Therefore, it has been decided to adjust the size of this series of ships. One of its design features is the ratio of 204.29 meters in length to 29.6 meters in width to improve the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic performance of the ship.
This is also the first batch of ships in the DaFei fleet with upper structures located at the front. Compared with traditional structures, the front bridge and cabin can ensure better aerodynamic performance and higher loading capacity. The design also adopts an almost inverted straight bow and an integrated bow drum to achieve better fluid dynamic performance, thereby reducing fuel consumption per voyage by 15%.
Dafei pointed out that compared to traditional fuels, LNG is a low-carbon energy source that can reduce 99% of sulfur oxide emissions, 92% of nitrogen oxide emissions, and 91% of fine particulate matter emissions. These new ships are powered by a 12 megawatt MAN dual fuel LNG engine and can also use biogas generated from biological waste, which can be converted into electrochemically produced methane from decarbonized hydrogen gas as fuel.
This type of ship will be equipped with an AC generator connected to the main propulsion engine to provide the necessary energy for the ship's electrical facilities during sea navigation. Another innovation is the 1 megawatt hydrogen powered fuel cell, which is the most powerful fuel cell on board ships. The fuel cell will be installed on the last ship scheduled to be delivered in January 2025, achieving zero emissions during berthing.
Dafei is optimistic about alternative fuels such as LNG and methanol. As of the third quarter of last year, the company has invested $17 billion (approximately RMB 1231.65 billion) to build a fleet of nearly 120 LNG powered and methanol powered ships, which will be delivered before 2027.
According to the latest data from Alphaliner, currently DaFei's fleet operates a total of 635 container ships, including 256 self owned ships and 379 leased ships, with a total capacity of approximately 3.6384 million TEUs, ranking third in the world. In addition, DaFei has 101 new ships under construction, totaling 1.139 million TEUs, with orders held accounting for 31.3% of the existing fleet.
