NYK Line is gearing up to place orders for 12 LNG-fuelled pure car/truck carriers in a deal described as Japan’s largest car-carrier order.
The Japanese shipowner is reported to be spending $912m en bloc for the 7,000-ceu ships, or around $76m per vessel, according to Fearnley Securities.
The vessel order will be evenly split between Shin Kurushima Dockyard and the newly launched Nihon Shipyard, a joint venture of Imabari Shipbuilding and Japan Marine United (JMU).
NYK Line said on Tuesday that the newbuildings will be delivered successively starting in fiscal year 2025, which ends on 31 March 2026. Deliveries are to continue into fiscal year 2028.
“This consecutive building of LNG-fuelled PCTCs is in accordance with our PCTC fleet replacement plan to achieve our environment management target, which is to reduce CO2 emissions per tonne-kilometre of transport by 50% by 2050,” the shipowner said.
“The use of LNG fuel, in addition to hull modification to improve fuel economy, will contribute to a reduction of CO2 emissions by about 40% compared to ships using conventional heavy fuel oil.”
Last October, NYK Line took delivery of Japan's first LNG-fuelled PCTC, the 7,000-ceu Sakura Leader (built 2020), from Shin Kurushima Dockyard. It already has firm plans to launch eight LNG-fuelled PCTCs by 2024.
“Including these additional 12 new vessels, NYK’s total number of LNG-fuelled PCTCs will increase to 20 by fiscal 2028 through a total investment of about ¥200bn ($1.8bn),” NYK Line said.
Fearnley Securities analysts Espen Landmark Fjermestad, Peder Nicolai Jarlsby and Ulrik Mannhart said the NYK order would be the first meaningful addition to an orderbook that is practically non-existent at 2% of the current fleet.
“With NYK controlling north of 100 PCTCs and a signalled vision of replacing over 40 vessels with more modern tonnage over the next decade, the order does not come as a major surprise,” they said.
