Stena RoRo, the ferry tonnage provider in the Gothenburg based Stena sphere of companies, says it has placed an order for four large ropax ferries with the AVIC Weihai Shipyard in China, with an option for another four units.
They will have a lane metre capacity of 3,000 and they will be able to carry 1,000 passengers. Deliveries are scheduled to take place in 2019 and 2020 and they will be employed on Stena Line’s services in northern Europe. Stena Line is also part of the privately owned Stena sphere of companies.
”During the course of the past 24 months our engineering staff has managed to develop a design that is not only 50% larger than today’s standard RoPax vessels, but more importantly, incorporates the emission reduction and efficiency initiatives that have been developed throughout the Stena Group during the past years,” said Carl-Johan Hagman, Managing Director of Stena Line, in a statement.
“These ships will be the most fuel efficient ferries in the world and will set a new industry standard when it comes to operational performance, emissions and cost competitiveness, positioning Stena Line to support its customers in the next decades,” he continued, adding that the new ships would be 50% larger than comparable existing tonnage.
Deltamarin, the Finnish consultant naval architects that are part of the AVIC group, said they would work in the project not only as a designer but also as a provider of comprehensive project management services to support AVIC SHIP and AVIC Weihai Shipyard in the vessel construction.
“Deltamarin’s engineering package includes approval design, support in procurement handling and detail design. Deltamarin Floating Construction will carry out the construction management in close co-operation with AVIC, and supplement the construction team with long passenger ship building experience,” the company said in a statement.
“The project management services also include master planning, procurement of the project materials and material management, project information management and site supervision. Deltamarin developed the concept of the vessel at an earlier stage in close collaboration with the owner Stena,” Deltamarin continued.
The Guangzhou shipyard in China is currently building two large ropax ferries without overnight capacity for Rederi AB Gotland, another Swedish ferry company, which already operates two such vessels built at the same shipyard.
Otherwise, Chinese yards have not built major passenger vessels to western owners and the Stena order can be viewed as a step towards higher value added business, such as passenger tonnage, at a time when dry bulk and container vessel owners, two major customer groups of Chinese yards, are struggling with unprecedented overcapacity and consequent deep losses.
