EN 
it
Costa Crociere (Carnival Corp. Group) starts bookings for the first trips of its new flagship cruise ship, Costa Smeralda, which will be the first cruise ship in the Mediterranean fueled entirely with liquefied natural gas. Costa Smeralda has a capacity of about 3,300 cubic meters of LNG, which will be supplied by Shell on the basis of a ten-year contract with Carnival Corp.
The agreement, carried on by the law firm Paul Hastings of Milan and presented during a ConferenceGNL workshop in the port of Augusta in May 2016, provides the supply of LNG for all the ships of Carnival Corp. fleets in all parts of the world. Technical and contractual problems of the marine supply of LNG will be addressed during the 5th International Conference and Expo on small scale LNG that will take place next May 15th and 16th in Naples.
The 15-day "Vernissage Cruise" of Costa Smeralda will cross North, Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas starting from Hamburg on 20 October to touch Rotterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseilles and arrive in Savona, the reference port of the Costa fleet. On November 3, the six-day inaugural Cruise will depart from Savona and will stop in Marseille, Barcelona to land in Civitavecchia. Costa Smeralda will continue sailing in the western Mediterranean until April 2020, with one week cruises that from Savona will touch Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Civitavecchia and La Spezia.
Built in the Finnish shipyards Meyer Turk, Costa Smeralda gross of over 182,000 tons, and is 337 meters long, 42 wide with a cruising speed of 21 knots.
There are 2,612 rooms for passengers: 28 suites, 106 rooms with a terrace, 1,522 rooms with balconies, 168 exterior rooms and 788 interior rooms, which can accommodate over 6,500 passengers, while the crew provides 1678 people..
"With LNG, a breakthrough in fuel technology, Costa Smeralda represents a real innovation for the international market and helps to set new standards for the entire sector" - said Neil Palomba, general manager of Costa Crociere - "Costa Group is a leader in Europe and Asia, and continues to lead the industry towards an increasingly sustainable tourism. Our strategy will provide a great boost to the development of LNG as an alternative fuel for the cruise sector".
"In addition to being a ship that shows the latest advances in terms of technology and environmental impact, Costa Smeralda and its sister ship, which will be ready in 2021, are unique ships from the point of view of services offered on board and design. Costa Smeralda is the best expression of the 'Italy's finest' concept that characterizes the Costa brand at an international level", concluded Palomba.
Source: AmbienteAmbienti
