Green vessel delivered to Swiss shipper

A photo shows MSC NOA ARIEILA, the largest container vessel in South China, being delivered for use in Nansha district of Guangzhou on Monday. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

An environmentally friendly container transport vessel — MSC NOA ARIEILA — was delivered for use in Nansha district of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Monday, demonstrating China's shipbuilding strength and technology.

The ship, jointly built by Guangzhou Shipyard International Co Ltd and China Shipbuilding Trading Co Ltd, is 366 meters long and 51 meters wide, GSI said in a statement on Monday.

With a full load of 16,616 twenty-foot equivalent units, it is the largest container transport vessel built in the southern Chinese region, it said.

The vessel, with a molded depth of 30.2 meters, is designed to have a draft of 14.5 meters.

It is the first of eight container vessels GSI and China Shipbuilding are building for Mediterranean Shipping Co SA, the world's largest container shipping company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Located at the mouth of the Pearl River, GSI, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp, is a Shanghai Stock Exchange-listed company. It is also one of the major shipbuilding bases in the country.

GSI successively overcame technical difficulties in building the vessel, including cutting and welding of crack resistant steels and automatic welding of crack resistant steel robots, under the guidance of a large container ship expert group from CSSC, according to the statement.

Contracts for construction of the large container vessels were signed in March 2021.

Continuous technological innovation has led to the development of super-large container ships in terms of environmental protection, the statement said.

MSC NOA ARIEILA is equipped with advanced desulfurization and denitrification systems.

The first six vessels will have reserved liquefied natural gas power function, while the remaining will use LNG dual-fuel propulsion system, meeting the latest environmental emission standards, it said.

The vessel also saves energy and is highly efficient, with all technical indicators meeting world standards, it said.

Yang Wei, project manager of the vessel, said it has a shaft generator with a power of 4,000 kilowatts.

"When the ship is sailing normally, the shaft generator is connected to the grid with one main generator, which can meet the electricity demand of the whole ship," said Yang.

"And through the previous navigation tests, the superiority of the performance of the vessel's shaft generator has been fully demonstrated and has been recognized by the ship owner," he said.

The vessel is also equipped with a world-leading air drag reduction system.

When the vessel is sailing, the air compression system on board injects compressed air into the bottom of the vessel, forming a layer of air at the bottom, reducing direct contact between seawater and the hull, which can greatly reduce the resistance of seawater.

When the air drag reduction system is operational, a huge ship filled with more than 16,000 TEUs will be lifted by the air membrane like a hovercraft to minimize the resistance of seawater to the vessel, which is also key to its excellent environmental performance.