CMA CGM orders biggest ships ever with dual-fuel engines

FRENCH shipping giant CMA CGM's containerships will be powered the
most powerful dual-fuel engines ever built, reports London's LNG World
Shipping journal.

The containership segment is the smallest, in terms of the number of
ships in service and on order with duel-fuel capacity, said the
report.

But it has recently been the focus of some dramatic news as regards
the use of LNG as marine fuel. In November, CMA CGM specified
dual-fuel engines for nine new 22,000-TEUers.

They will be not only the largest vessels of this type ever ordered,
but also the largest ships that are not LNG carriers to be powered by
LNG, said the report.

Five of the ships will be built at the Hudong-Zhonghua yard and four
at the neighbouring Shanghai facility of Waigaoqiao. All will be
delivered between the end of 2019 and the end of 2020.

These breakthrough ships will be propelled by the largest gas-burning
engines ever built and boast an 18,600 cubic metre LNG tank of the GTT
Mark III membrane type.

The dual-fuel propulsion units chosen for the vessels are Winterthur
Gas & Diesel Ltd (WinGD) low-pressure, two-stroke 12X92DF engines. The
12-cylinder, 92 cm bore engine on each ship is rated 63,840 kW at 80
rpm.

Total and Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) have jointly ordered, from the
Hudong-Zhonghua yard, the 135 m LNG bunker vessel (LNGBV) that will be
required to service the CMA CGM box ships. It will have the same
capacity and utilise the same membrane containment system as the
bunker tank on the container ships.