New Contract for Seven Vessels
Conoship will work together with Finnish Bore Ltd and Dutch Wijnne Barends, both affiliates of Dutch Spliethoff Group, on the design and build of seven state-of-the-art vessels for sustainable sea transportation for UPM in Europe. The vessels will be ice-strengthened and meet the latest technological, operational and environmental standards. They will be built in China and are scheduled to be delivered in 2021 and in 2022.
Bore Ltd will build three (3) RoLo vessels for transporting UPM’s paper products and Wijnne Barends four (4) LoLo vessels for transporting the company’s pulp and other forest products. Conoship has an intermediate function in this process and needs to translate UPM’s transportation demands combined with the ships’ efficiency into a bankable ship design. “We need to engineer transportation solutions and design ships with a strong focus on sustainability.” says Geert Dokter, Managing Director, Conoship International. “As we have shown with our concept designs and feasibility studies, we are constantly pushing the borders of innovation. We are very proud to be part of this cooperation, a showcase of future shipping and transportation.”
“The vessels will be fueled with liquid natural gas (LNG) which results in a significant (approximately 25%) reduction of CO2 emissions compared with commonly used marine gas oil. In addition, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx) emissions will decrease by approximately 85% and 99%, respectively. The emissions of soot particles will also decrease by 99%,” says Lauri Rikala, Director, Global Break Bulk Shipping, UPM Logistics. All vessels will be chartered by UPM and hence will be fully operated by the company.
“Since the establishment of Spliethoff in 1921, the company has been transporting forest products for our clients – it’s in our DNA”, says Michael van den Heuvel, CCO of Spliethoff. “We are very pleased to be able to offer UPM these next generation sustainable vessels. Minimising our environmental footprint has long been a focal point for the Spliethoff Group and the reduction of emissions is a fundamental part of this. The new vessels running on LNG fit well in our continuous drive for greener operations.”
