The first steel has been cut for United European Car Carriers’ (UECC) new battery hybrid LNG-powered vessel.
The steel cutting ceremony for the pure car truck carrier (PCTC) was held at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai on January 8, 2020.
“I have no doubt that this day (Jan 8) will be seen as a significant milestone in our UECC’s history by the generation of people which follow,” Glenn Edvardsen, UECC’s CEO said on the occasion.
“I, therefore, feel specially privileged to … to witness the historic inauguration of the work on our first of the three LNG fuelled/battery hybrid solution vessels,” he added.
“As the first dual-fuel + battery-powered hybrid ship in the world, the newly started 3,600 CEU PCTC can meet the requirements of the full range while truly achieving ultra-low emissions and it is so advanced that its speed, oil consummation and environment protection level has walked at the forefront of the world,” Huang Wenfei, President of Jiangnan Shipyard, explained.
UECC, jointly owned by Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) and Wallenius Lines, ordered three next-generation PCTCs from China Ship Building Trading and Jiangnan Shipyard Group in 2019.
The 169-meter-long newbuilds are scheduled to be delivered from July 2021 onwards.
In late 2019, UECC unveiled it had secured green financing for the ship trio. Amounting to about USD 70 million, the financing was obtained from Sweden’s Svenska SkeppsHypotek.