“Green Pearl River” LNG Powered Ship Project Wraps up

Wang Jin, Kuang Zhanting

The 26 new ships for the “Green Pearl River” project designed by CSSC No.605 Institute and built by CSSC Guangxi Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering were signed and delivered on December 29,2022. So far, the LNG-fueled bulk carrier / multi-purpose ship project had been delivered in 2022, and CSSC had won an initial victory in jointly serving the national strategy for the green development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area along with other parties concerned.

Driven by LNG newbuilding, the“Green Pearl River” newbuilding project boosted the improvement of relevant policies, related supporting infrastructure, incentive mechanism system, guided to address problems perplexing new energy ship promotion concerning policies, shipping,equipment, energy and capital, built the LNG fuel application ecolosystem for regional ships, formed the nationwide good demonstration effect,and played a very important role in promoting the green development of inland river shipping.

Unveil transformation and upgrading of inland river vessels

Jointly promoted by CSSC,CNOOC and the Guangdong Provincial Government, the “Green Pearl River” project is aimed at implementing the national ecological civilization building and sustainable development strategy, cooperating to promote the regional clean power ship demonstration project for inland rivers,building the LNG fuel application ecolosystem for provincial inland river ships, and promote the green development of shipping in Guangdong Province.

It is expected that after the project is put into operation, it will have an important demonstration significance for the building of "green shipping"in Guangdong Province and the "lowcarbon bay area", and will chart the course for the development of green inland river shipping in China.

The first batch of 50 new LNG single-fuel powered inland river carriers mainly includes 25 2000DWT LNG single-fuel powered bulk carriers, 15 3000DWT LNG single-fuel powered bulk carriers, 10 3000DWT / 190TEU LNG singlefuel powered multi-purpose ships.Designed by the CSSC No.605 Institute and built by CSSC Guangxi, the CHG620L6MPI marine gas engine with independent intellectual property rights is equipped by CSSC Henan Diesel Engine Industry, the LNG gas supply system is independently designed and manufactured by CSSC Yichang Jiangxia Marine Machinery,and the supply task of the LNG security control system is undertaken by CSSC Marine Technology, a subsidiary of CSSC Systems Engineering Research Institute / CSSC Electronic Technology.

According to the CSSC early argumentation results, the Guangdong Provincial Government work requirements, and owners’specific opinions, the project adopts the large capacity LNG storage tank, LNG single-fuel multipoint injection engine, high reliability safety monitoring system among other new technologies and new equipment,design and construction are carried out in compliance with the CSSC quality standards, CSC classification rules and regulations, and China's second stage emission standards, completely changing problems such as backward inland river ship technology, grave pollutant emissions, low energy efficiency, moderate safety, unveiling transformation and upgrading and high quality development of inland river ships.

Crack the hard nut of batch building demonstration

As a demonstration project of batch building, the "Green Pearl River" newbuilding project has many thorny issues, such as tight time,heavy task, complex technology, high safety requirements, and stringent plan approval.

On March 31, 2021, the first ship of the project was started. The ship design, test and building were carried out synchronously. On the basis of the Pearl River traditional ship, hull form optimization was conducted on the account of basin test, integrated application argumentation of green intelligent technology was performed,onland joint debugging was carried out, contributing to ensure the project technology advancement, reliability,construction quality and plan management requirements.

At the beginning of last year,indicators of the ships delivered by the project via testing, speed, deadweight ton and gas consumption by a third party under full load conditions were better than the contract requirements,which were highly recognized by the shipowner in terms of business economy and reduction of ship pollutant emissions.

The year 2022 was the delivery peak period of the “Green Pearl River” newbuilding project. In order to ensure that the project ships are orderly built, the team compolosed of CSSC Guangxi, No.605 Institute and marine equipment manufacturers adhered to solidarity, tenacious struggle, resolutely staged a battle for the epidemic containing and ship delivery guarantee they held the delivery mobilization meeting,signed delivery liability statement with the contractor department,targeting delivery. All departments made detailed production planning,optimized production organization,prepared production plan, fulfilled the daily plan on the day, completed the week plan within the week. They took into full account delivery difficulties,made emergency plans, timely coordinated and dealt with various potential hidden perils in the process of ship delivery guarantee, and resolutely took precautions.

With the strong support of ship owners, supervisors and ship surveyors,the project has continuously created the production highlights such as the new record of the number of monthly sea trial nodes and the number of ships delivered in a single day, and accomplished all the delivery tasks on December 29.