Shipbuilding : New LNG-powered roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) vessel for Swedish SOL
China-based Yantai CIMC Raffles Shipyard has cut the first steel for a new LNG-powered roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) vessel ordered by Swedish shipping company Wallenius SOL.
The vessel, which will be the world’s first RoRo ship to be both LNG fueled and have an ice class 1A Super, is scheduled to be delivered in August 2021.
“The ship will form an extremely important part of our fleet,” Ragnar Johansson, Managing Director, Wallenius SOL, commented.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that construction has begun. We set the bar high in terms of reliable ocean freight with low environmental impact, and a ship with both the highest ice class and environmental performance shows how we live up to this,” Johansson added.
The newbuild will have a length of 242 meters, a beam of 35.2 meters and a capacity of 5,800 lane meters. It will have a top speed of 20 knots and a cruise speed of 16 knots.
It was designed by Wallenius Marine in collaboration with Danish shipbuilder Knud E. Hansen to handle the tough, sometimes Arctic, conditions in the Gulf of Bothnia.
In mid-March, Wallenius Marine opened a local office at the Yantai shipyard. It will be fully manned by June and will allow them to monitor the process closely and collaborate with CIMC Raffles. In June, construction will begin on a sister ship to the one now beginning to take shape.
Up to four vessels are planned to be ordered at CIMC Raffles. The newbuilds will be the first ship the Sweden-based company will operate.
In April 2019, Wallenius and Swedish Orient Line (SOL) established Wallenius SOL to transport forestry products and other goods in a network covering the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
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