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Total Marine Fuels and the CMA CGM shipowner announced in a joint statement, released in early December, the signing of a ten-year contract for the supply of 10,000 Teu containerships in the Mediterranean, starting in autumn 2021.
The new contract covers the ships used between Europe and Asia, and provides for a ship-to-ship supply of 270,000 tons of LNG per year in the ports of Marseille Fos and Singapore. A similar agreement has been in force since 2017 for the supply of container ships in the seas of Northern Europe.
For the supply in the Mediterranean, Total got a tanker under construction at the Chinese shipyard Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding on behalf of the Japanese shipowner MOL, which will then operate it in Marseille in partnership with Gazocean, a local company specialized in the maritime transport of natural gas.
The new tanker that Total will use in force at a long-time charter, will fly the French flag and will be 135 meters long, with a capacity of 18,600 m3 of LNG and the complete re-liquefaction of the boill off gas. Total's first tanker for the North Seas was launched a few weeks ago in Shanghai to supply the 23,000 Teu CMA CGM container ships in the near future.
The certification company Bureau Veritas, which signed the contract with the Chinese shipyards in 2017, is French as well as Total and CMA CGM, .
In the meantime the new LNG flagship of Costa Crociere, the Costa Smeralda, has made its first supply in the Mediterranean in the port of Barcelona last December 18, and is now ready to start the first cycle of cruises departing from Savona next December 21 (other port calls are Marseille, Palma de Majorca, Civitavecchia and La Spezia).
The refuelling was carried out by the tanker Coral Methane on behalf of Shell, which has a ten-year LNG supply contract with the Carnival Group, of which Costa Crociere is part. The tanker filled the three Costa Smeralda tanks with a total of approximately 3,200 cubic metres of LNG (approximately half the total capacity).
Two of these tanks have a length of about 35 metres, a diameter of 8 metres and a capacity volume of about 1,525 cubic metres each; a third, with a diameter of 5 metres, is 28 metres long and has a capacity volume of about 520 cubic metres.
Since last April, the same tanker, which supplies LNG to Rotterdam, has been supplying the Aida Nova, of similar tonnage and number of passengers to the Costa Smeralda, also belonging to the Costa Group.
