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INSIGHT: CMA CGM reveals ‘one stop’ LNG bunkering strategy

08 Jun 2018

French container transportation and shipping company CMA CGM will be implementing a ‘one stop’ bunkering strategy for its nine liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled 22,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) newbuildings upon delivery.

“The way we have structured the concept is these big vessels are being built in China and they will be available in 2020,” Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman & CEO of CMA CGM Group, told Manifold Times and others on the side lines of the France-Singapore Innovation Circle event.

“We have decided to bunker in one location being Rotterdam and we have designed tanks on board the ships big enough to do a round voyage.

“Unless there is some exception event that requires us to do otherwise, if not, we are going to do bunkering in Rotterdam.”

According to Saadé, the port of Rotterdam will setup a bunker facility by 2020 to deliver LNG marine fuel to CMA CGM’s nine 22,000 TEU newbuildings.

Each of the LNG powered vessels will have enough fuel storage capacity for 18,000 metric tonnes (mt) of gas – the volume needed to support a voyage rotation of 63 days between China (ending at Shanghai) to Europe (ending at Rotterdam) and back.

“The tanks are big to allow for a round voyage; it will be eating some of the space on board the ships but the quantity that is going to be taken out is going to be minimum,” he says.

“The investment we are making is obviously costly because LNG ships will cost more than conventional vessels but what we believe is price of gas is going to be cheaper than price of fuel oil.

“On top of that, and most important, is that 2020 you will be forced to burn clean fuel.”

A series of LNG bunkering developments have taken place at the port of Rotterdam since the beginning of the year:

Related: Rotterdam expecting first STS LNG bunkering op in June
Related: Port of Rotterdam Authority reiterates support for LNG bunkering
Related: New record for LNG bunkering speed set at Rotterdam
Related: Rotterdam port: LNG bunkering to be ‘routine operation’ by 2020

Photo credit: CMA CGM
Publication date: 8 June, 2018

 

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