World’s first LNG-only ships

Contracts placed with Rolls-Royce Marine, Norway, for designs and equipment systems for two ro-ro vessels and two options mark a new direction in merchant ship propulsion.

Sea-Cargo has ordered the first ships in the world to be fuelled solely with LNG, and also have a simple mechanical drive propulsion system. Sea-Cargo was founded in 2001 through the merger of the liner activities of Seatrans and Nor Cargo, two leading shipping lines trading between the west coast of Norway, UK and mainland Europe. On delivery from the Bharati shipyard in India in 2010 they will operate on a ten-day round trip service covering Baltic, Norwegian and British ports, bunkering gas fuel at one location. They are a major breakthrough, both in the application of LNG fuel for merchant vessels, and in the way the simple Rolls-Royce solution works. An important end result will be a large reduction in emissions compared with a similar ship using liquid fuel. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by about 20 percent, nitrogen oxide by about 90 percent, particulates negligible and sulphur oxide emissions will be zero. The new 132.8-metre-long Sea-Cargo vessels will be able to carry 5,600 tonnes of cargo on a draught of six metres, with up to 94TEU of containers on deck and 1,140 lane-metres of roro capacity.

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Lloyd’s Register in UAE maritime training venture

Dubai: Lloyd’s Register has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Emirates International Maritime Academy (EIMA) to collaborate in providing maritime training programs in addition to organizing maritime seminars and workshops in the UAE.

This co-operation reflects EIMA’s strategy to enhance collaboration with maritime organizations and leading academic institutions in the region to exchange knowledge and expertise. Under the MoU, EIMA and Lloyd’s Register jointly will offer and develop compact maritime courses in the fields of security, safety and ship classification in addition to organizing maritime seminars and workshops. The MoU also includes collaborative efforts to establish a “Marine Centre of Excellence” within the Dubai Maritime City Campus (DMC Campus). The MoU was signed by Capt. Jaafar Sidin, Director of DMC Campus & EIMA; and John Curley, Lloyd’s Register EMEA, Senior Vice President- Marine for the Middle East and Africa. John Curley commented: “Dubai Maritime City has been conceptualized to be the next-generation standard in maritime development. We consider it an honour to be part of this groundbreaking project and look forward to collaborating with EIMA in providing a top-of-the-line maritime training program that will help keep the region in pace with the latest world maritime developments. Lloyd’s Register has an unparalleled record in supporting marine industry academic and training institutions world-wide. The academy is based within the DMC Campus, the region’s first maritime educational campus that will be able to accommodate over 1,300 students and will host several world-renowned universities and institutes.

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Shipping industry should prepare for changes

The abolition of liner conferences on the Europe trades is imminent but while the shipping lines are worried about the sea change in the way their business will have to be run, the impact from the ruling will in the near term be quite limited as rates on the Asia-Europe trades are very depressed anyway.

The key takeaway from a talk by the Singapore Shipping Association on the ‘Competition Developments in the EU’ was that all shipping industry players need to be extremely careful. In future, penalties are expected to be punitive – with a maximum fine of up to 10 per cent of a company’s worldwide sales, which could run into the billions of dollars – and there are many grey areas to contend with. All this will lead to huge increases in cost to ensure compliance. Implications for the various parties involved include much less standardization with all lines needing to have their own individual tariffs and supplementary charges as well as rules and regulations, and as a result, much more frequent and flexible changes. While this should theoretically make the market much more competitive and sensitive to prevailing conditions, it could also have the effect of making it very difficult for shippers because they will now have to negotiate separate contracts with every individual line. The smaller Asian shippers in Singapore for example, with lower volume and therefore less bargaining power, may find themselves in a tough position as a result of this.

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