China Merchants yard kicks off work on Eastern Pacific Shipping’s LNG PCTC

China Merchants Jinling Shipyard in Weihai has started building the sixth LNG-powered pure car and truck carrier for Singapore’s Eastern Pacific Shipping.

The shipbuilder held a keel-laying ceremony on January 15 for the vessel (W0305) with a capacity of 7,000 ceu, it said in a statement.

This is the sixth and the last in this batch of LNG dual-fuel PCTCs CMJL (Weihai) will build for EPS.

CMJL (Weihai) expects to deliver all of the vessels in the next two years.

The shipbuilder owned by China Merchants recently delivered the first ship of its 7000 ceu dual-fuel car carrier series to EPS.

CMA CGM Indianapolis will serve CMA CGM’s unit CEVA Logistics under a charter deal.

At nearly 200 meters in length, the vessel has the capacity to transport 7,000 cars while its deck surface is spread across 12 levels.

With a width of 38 meters, the ship has a gross tonnage of 72,000 tons and will move at a max speed of 19 knots.

The RoRo vessels’ hybrid power system includes both LNG and electric battery capabilities and it is equipped with two 2000 cbm LNG tanks.

Besides these ships, EPS also has LNG-powered PCTCs on order at China Merchants Jinling Shipyard in Jiangsu.

EPS recently took delivery of the second of ten LNG-powered PCTCs from this yard.