Wes Amelie
German coastal shipping company Wessels Reederei has signed a letter of intent with MAN Diesel & Turbo regarding the conversion of three of its fleet to dual-fuel gas operation. The signing last week comes just 9 weeks after Wessel’s Wes Amelie re-entered service following its own LNG conversion.
The three ships are sisters to the Wes Amelie, a 1,036-teu feeder container ship with a MAN 8L48/60B main engine that was retrofitted to a multi-fuel, four-stroke MAN 51/60DF unit earlier in 2017. The retrofit enables dual-fuel operation and is the first such conversion of its type.
Signing took place last week in connection with the Europort 2017 exhibition for maritime technology in Rotterdam.
Stefan Eefting – Senior Vice President, MAN Diesel & Turbo and Head of MAN PrimeServ Diesel in Augsburg – said: “The Wes Amelie project was really a pioneering moment in the European container-feeder market and shows clearly that existing MAN engines can be converted to LNG operation with a tremendous effect on exhaust emissions and the environment.”
MAN Diesel & Turbo reports that the dual-fuel conversion has enabled the Wes Amelie to significantly reduce its SOx emissions by >99%, NOx by approximately 90%, and CO2 by up to 20%. Wessel’s vessel now meets both the Tier II and Tier III emission requirements set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Multiplier effect
Eefting praised Wessels’ cooperative spirit and concluded: “One of the key reasons the Wes Amelie was selected for conversion was its ‘multiplier effect’, that is, its many sister ships that would facilitate follow-up projects at reduced costs owing to the experiences gained from the first project. I believe the signing of this letter of intent validates our approach and points a realistic way towards decarbonisation and a climate-neutral shipping industry by 2050.”
When selecting a suitable vessel for conversion, special attention is paid to the scalability of the engineering services as well as the development costs, reducing significantly the costs for follow-up projects. In this respect, the Wes Amelie has 23 sister ships, 16 of them structurally identical, which would allow follow-up projects to be easily implemented, facilitating a multiplier effect.
Source: MAN Marine Engines & Systems
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