German container line Reederei NSB successfully floated out MSC Geneva, the first ever container ship to undergo a process of widening which will increase the ship’s capacity from 4,860 TEU to over 6,300 TEU once all the work is completed, the company said in a release.
MSC Geneva is the first of three Reederei NSB’s boxships to be widened at the Huarun Dadong Dockyard in China.
Reederei NSB claims that this process increases the TEU capacity of a ship by more than 20%, with the IMO Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) equalling that of a newbuilding. As a result, the ship can carry more cargo and has a higher stability whilst operating costs remain the same, says the German line.
Apart from converting ships of existing fleets, purchasing a used ship and having it widened is less costly faster to realize than ordering and waiting on a new one. Widening offers high flexibility as, depending on the original ship, it is possible to add between two to four container rows, according to the company.
Reederei NSB estimates the conversion of the first ship to take about four months, and the experience and know-how gained in this pilot project will help to shorten the time it takes to widen the remaining ships.
“A central element of our innovation is that we cut the ship in low-use areas. The widening significantly increases both the load carrying capacity and the transverse stability,” said Lutz Müller, former CTO at Reederei NSB.
”In addition, sustainability – an aspect that is getting ever more important in shipping – is increased too. Carbon emissions per ton of cargo will be substantially reduced. Moreover, converting a ship instead of scrapping it will be less harmful to the environment than building a new ship.”
After the MSC Geneva, the HRDD shipyard will start working on the Buxhai and the MSC Carouge.
“Candidates for the Widening are Panamax ships delivered after 2005. We believe that the market potential is big. The enquiries we received in the past months indicate that the special know-how we have acquired is very much in demand,” said Senior Executive Advisor at Reederei NSB Bozidar Petrovic, who heads and supports the first Widening project at HRDD on site.
The Widening project has been carried out together with classification society DNV GL.