CMB.Tech has emerged as the shipowning partner in a project to build the world’s first ammonia-powered container ship.
The Belgian shipping giant, whose takeover by Saverys family-backed Euronav was completed last week, has teamed up with Norway’s North Sea Container Line and Yara International and its subsidiary Yara Clean Ammonia to order a 1,400-teu ice-class vessel in China.
The vessel, to be named Yara Eyde, will be built at Qingdao Yangfan Shipbuilding.
It is scheduled for delivery in mid-2026, when it will run on clean ammonia, serving routes between Norway and Germany.
The ship will be owned by Delphis, the container division of CMB.Tech, and operated by NCL Oslofjord, a joint venture between North Sea Container Line and Yara Clean Ammonia.
The joint venture has secured a long-term contract of affreightment with Yara International for the freight of containers between Yara’s fertiliser plant in Porsgrunn, Norway and Hamburg and Bremerhaven in Germany.
North Sea Container Line will commercially manage the vessel while Yara Clean Ammonia will deliver ammonia fuel to the vessel.
The newbuilding, named after one of the Yara founders, comes with funding from the Norwegian funding organisation Enova to cover the additional costs of the ammonia fuel system. The price has not been disclosed.
Decarbonisation today
NCL Oslofjord is understood to have chosen to partner CMB.Tech for its expertise in hydrogen and ammonia engines.
“The project proves that decarbonisation is possible today, and we are confident that the project will pave the way for clean ammonia as a dominating fuel in the industry,” said North Sea Container Line chief executive Bente Hetland.
TradeWinds reported in November that Yara and North Sea Container Line were planning to build a container vessel with a two-stroke dual-fuel engine.
The ammonia will be supplied by Azane Fuel Solutions, a company backed by Yara and Navigator Holdings that is building a clean ammonia bunker network in Norway, with Yara Clean Ammonia as one of the partners.
The vessel will use about 10,000 tonnes of ammonia annually, so the expectation is that it will bunker about 180 tonnes every week in Norway.
Fertiliser and ammonia producer Yara International has signed an agreement that it will use up to 40% of the vessel’s cargo capacity to ship its products from Norway to Germany.
Last week, Alexander Saverys-led Euronav completed a $1.15bn deal with his family’s Compagnie Maritime Belge to buy CMB.Tech.
