NYK (Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha) has concluded a shipbuilding contract with China Merchants Jinling Shipyard (Nanjing) Co. Ltd. for four LNG-fuelled car carriers. These four vessels will be delivered from 2022 to 2023 and are planned to be assigned to transport vehicles mainly to/from Europe and/or to the Middle East.

On these vessels, WinGD’s X-DF2.0 iCER main engine will be utilized for the first time in the world. This engine consumes less gas and reduces GHG by cutting methane emissions from exhaust gas by approximately 50%. Further, the vessels will be equipped with battery hybrid technology, which will improve fuel efficiency by mitigating the main engine and electrical generator load fluctuations through the support of batteries. The use of LNG fuel, together with these new technologies and other developments such as hull modification, will contribute to a reduction of sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions by 99% compared to ships fuelled by heavy fuel oil. Likewise, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions will be cut by 96%, and CO2 emissions by approximately 40% or more (per unit of transportation).

Founded in 1885, the Japanese shipping giant stated that this shipbuilding contract is in line with the company’s plan to replace current vessels with around 40 newly built LNG-fuelled car carriers over the next decade to achieve NYK’s environment management target, which is to reduce CO2 emissions per ton kilometre of transport by 50% by 2050. NYK aims to further advance to zero-emission vessels utilizing low-emission marine fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia from around the mid-2030s. 

The ships are 199.9 m long and capable of carrying 7,000 units. No price has been revealed for the quartet. Source: NYK Group