The current owner of Containerships Plc, Container Finance Ltd Oy, last month signed a combination agreement with Cma Cgm, whereby Container Finance’s entire shipping, harbour and terminal holdings, including Containerships plc, will become part of CMA CGM Group. Collectively, they have thirteen newbuilds powered by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) on their order books, all to be delivered between 2018 and 2020.

Upon closing the agreement, announced mid-June, Containerships plc will become part of CMA CGM intra-regional market offering in Europe and the Mediterranean area. Containerships’ strong presence in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea completes CMA CGM’s short sea network and strengthens both party’s position in the European logistics market. The restructuring is still a matter of approval of the European competition authorities. This is expected to take 3-6 months.

At present, the restructuring does not have any impacts on Containerships’ brand or operations. The company continues to execute its environmentally-friendly LNG strategy as planned, and will launch four LNG fuelled vessels between August 2018 and January 2019, approximately eight weeks apart. Containerships’ first two newbuilds, M/S Containerships Nord and M/S Containerships Strom, were christened at Wenchong Shipyard, China in May.

The newbuild LNG-powered vessels project, started in December 2016, will reduce remarkably CO2 emissions as well as sulphur, nitrogen and particulates emissions. The renewed fleet will have positive impact not only on the environment, but also in Containerships’ customers on their efforts against the global warming from their industry point of view. All vessels are being built at Wenchong Shipyard in Guangzhou, China.

CMA CGM is also committed to an LNG marine fuel strategy. Last November, it specified dual-fuel engines for nine new 22,000 TEU container ships being built in China. All will be delivered by the end of 2020.

CMA CGM is the 3rd biggest container shipping line in the world with revenue of €18 billion.

Sources: Containerships plc and CMA CGM

Related articles:

• Containerships’ First LNG-fueled Vessel Launched
• Construction of Containerships’ Four LNG Vessels Underway
• CMA CGM Selects LNG Engines for Nine TEU 22k