Tightening environmental regulations,setting limits worldwide on shipping emissions have increased the attractiveness of gas as a marine fuel and LNG has emerged as the principal alternative fuel option being adopted today.Up to now,the use of LNG as fuel has been limited to small and mid-size ships.It was originally adopted by LNG carriers for the simple reason that the Boil-Off Gas naturally generated by the normal warming up of the cryogenic cargo had to be managed to avoid the rise of pressure.It represents a competitive energy as well.With a few exceptions,for larger vessels,only “LNG ready" ships have been developed,such as for tankers,large container carriers and Very Large Ore Carriers.The main reasons being uncertainty of the LNG supply infrastructure,ensuring affordable LNG supply compared to other fuels,and extra CAPEX for dual fuel propulsion and auxiliaries.However,on the large container carrier market,the permanently moving economic and environmental pressure forces owners to innovate in order to comply and maintain profitably especially knowing that fuel cost can reach 50-60% of total OPEX.In that perspective in mind,CMA CGM,one of the top three of the world's largest container liners,has adopted a disruptive innovation by the use LNG as fuel for their largest new build container ships.This breakthrough project is crucial for the entire industry as it will demonstrate that compliance to stringent environmental constraint and increased economic advantage is possible.
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