Largest LNG container ship in the world rolls off slipway

The French company CMA CGM launched an extra-large container ship operating on liquefied natural gas, which is capable of transporting more than 23 thousand twenty-foot equivalents of cargo.

The new 400-meter vessel is named JacquesSaade became the largest LNG-powered ship to date. Its fuel tank is large enough to fit the Statue of Liberty and has an insulated casing that keeps the fuel liquid at -161°C. She is also one of the largest container ships in the world and is capable oftransport 23 112 containers.

The current record holder is the MSC Gulsun, with a capacity of 23,756 TEU.

The creation of Jacques Saade took more than a year. This week, he left the slipway at the Shanghai Jiannan-Changxing shipyard, but the CMA CGM will begin to operate it on the route between Asia and Northern Europe only next year.

Immediately after ordering a new vessel in 2017,the management of the transport company entered into an agreement with the French energy giant Total for the annual supply of 300 thousand tons of liquefied natural gas, starting in 2020.

Jacques Saade will be the first of nine giants CMACGM for 23 thousand TEU working on LNG. The use of this type of fuel is an alternative to installing expensive scrubbers to meet the requirements of IMO 2020 to reduce sulfur emissions.

In addition to improving the environmental component,The technological sector is also developing less actively. We previously reported on the development of a radical new prototype of an ultra-fast underwater vessel that can move in the water like an airplane in the air and dive to a depth of 1 km in five minutes.

text: Ilya Bauer, photo and video: CMA CGM Group