OOCL has christened the second of the six 21,000 TEU class vessels on order at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard on Geoje Island in South Korea.
The second 21,413 TEU containership, the OOCL Germany, will join its sister ship of the same size, the OOCL Hong Kong, to rule the seas as the two largest container shipping vessels in the world.
Hong Kong-based OOCL has ensured that the energy efficiency of the new containerships not only satisfies the current Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) baseline requirement, but is 48% better than the EEDI level needed by the International Maritime Organization in 2025.
The OOCL Germany will increase the total vessel capacity of the Ocean Alliance, which includes ships belonging to CMA CGM, COSCO Container Lines and Evergreen Line in its service.
Andy Tung, Chief Executive Officer of OOCL, said: “The state-of-the-art technologies in these newbuildings are truly pushing boundaries.
“As a ship owner, meeting environmental requirements are important considerations when working with the shipyard to ensure that we can make the vessel as ‘future proof’ as possible, particularly how we are seeing environmental standards and requirements becoming more and more stringent in the industry over the years.
“It has been a real privilege for us to be working alongside Samsung Heavy Industries, our long-standing business partner, on this journey – sharing the same commitment to aim high and deliver quality product and services.”
From left to right: D Y Park, President & Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Heavy Industries; Akiyo Moue, Sponsor; Nozomi Moue, Managing Executive Officer of Shinsei Bank and Andy Tung, Chief Executive Officer of OOCL
The OOCL Germany will be serving the Asia-Europe trade lane on the LL1 service, which starts and ends in Shanghai after a 77-day round trip that transits through the Suez Canal.
Ports visited on the journey include Ningbo, Xiamen, Yantian, Singapore, Rotterdam, Gdansk, Wilhelmshaven and Felixstowe.
OOCL's record will eventually be beaten by CMA CGM as it has placed an order for the next biggest containerships in the world with China’s Hudong Zhounghua Shipbuilding and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding.