Carnival Corporation has formed a strategic partnership with Warstila that will see the latter take over engine maintenance and monitoring work for a large part of Carnival’s fleet.

Under the new pact, Wartsila will be responsible for 79 Carnival vessels and will use systems to capture digitalised data streams from every engine.

The value of this 12-year agreement is around EUR 900m ($965.4m) while the expected revenue for Wartsila in the first two years is EUR 150m.

Bill Burke, chief marine officer for Carnival, said: “With Wartsila maintaining our vessels under our agreement and ensuring a high level of safety and reliability, we can concentrate on our core priority; providing great cruise vacations for our more than 11 million annual guests.”

A week ago, Carnival confirmed an order for two cruiseships at Italian yard Fincantieri, bringing its orderbook to 19 ships with deliveries through 2022.

Wartsila estimates potential savings in fuel costs in tens of millions of dollars per year.

Pierpaolo Barbone, executive vice president of Wartsila, said: “We are very excited to develop our long-term partnership into a more strategic direction.

“Both Wartsila and Carnival are committed to investing significantly in this partnership as well as to develop our cooperation in the long run.”