NACC Alicudi – World’s 1st Cement Carrier with IMO Tier III Diesel Engines

The 8,100 dwt NACC Alicudi has become the world’s first cement carrier equipped with IMO Tier III compliant diesel engines driving bulk handling system, Van Aalst Marine & Offshore said. 

Converted in 2017 with a Van Aalst dry bulk handling system, the vessel became a 120m self-discharging cement carrier.

As explained, the Van Aalst cement handling system is based on compressors and vacuum pumps, driven by Tier III Scania engines. Together, they form the heart of the vacuum-pressure system for pneumatic conveyance of cement, fly ash and granulated slag.

The development of the world’s first Scania IMO tier III diesel engines in service has been the result of joint engineering of Van Aalst, based in the Netherlands, and Scania from Sweden. The challenge put forward was to find correct placing of the Scania Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system in the engine room deckhouse, which was smaller as the previous non-SCR equipped engine room deckhouse. This resulted into lowering emissions, but also, and very important for the cement carrier owner, the lowering of the height of the loading system and loading points on board the vessel. This has considerable advantages during the ship’s operational life, as it can serve an increased number of ports.

Directly after completion of the conversion, the NACC Alicudi entered the trade for a three-year contract on the east coast of the United States of America and Canada. This area has been declared a NOx Emission Control Area (ECA) for new built and converted vessels as from January 2016, and the NACC Alicudi is now compliant with the area emission rules.

The new rules under IMO Tier III (NOx Emission Control Areas) envisage a 70% reduction in nitrogen oxide as well as sulphur oxide emissions from diesel engines, considerably more stringent than the EPA 2010 (USA) and EURO 6 (Europe) legislation.

Owned by NovaAlgoma Cement Carriers, the ship is chartered to McInnis Cement, to whom belongs a new cement plant in Port-Daniel-Gascons, Quebec, and a new receiving Bronx terminal in New York. As such, the newly-converted NACC Alicudi is an addition to the overall logistic footprint of McInnis, which already consists of another NovaAlgoma vessel, the NACC Quebec.

NovaAlgoma Cement Carriers said the vessel is a major step forward in emission reduction as well as operational flexibility. In addition, the McInnis cement company expressed its appreciation of the delivered performance of the bulk handling system which is performing above contractual discharge rates. This enables McInnis Cement to reduce the turn-around time and increase the annual throughput of the vessel.

The high emission standards of the vessel will enable a shift to the NOx and SOx ECA’s of the US Gulf of Mexico, and even Puerto Rico and Hawaii, in future.