Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) and ClassNK established “Zero-Emission Accelerating Ship Finance (Program)” to support the maritime industry’s transition toward decarbonization.
DBJ and ClassNK have anticipated an increasing need for a system to reasonably evaluate the asset value of environmentally friendly ships and to combine them with investment and financing, and brought together each knowledge and expertise.
Under the established Program, ClassNK evaluates ships based on a comprehensive scoring model jointly developed by DBJ from the perspective of “decarbonization, environmentally friendly performance, and innovativeness,” and DBJ provides investment and financing.
As the first project under the Program, ClassNK evaluated the LPG dual-fueled large LPG carrier, “CRYSTAL OASIS” (IMO No. 9915806) owned by Kumiai Navigation, and DBJ provided a loan to Kumiai to finance its acquisition.
The ship is an LPG dual-fueled large LPG carrier built at Sakaide Works of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and delivered to Kumiai in June 2022.
In evaluating the ship, the following factors were taken into account:
- The dual-fuel main engine using LPG has realized a significant reduction of sulfur oxide (SOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the exhaust gas, and the ship has been certified to be compliant with the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) Phase 3 requirements achieved prior to the enforcement of the regulation;
- The installation of an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system has enabled the ship to meet the nitrogen oxide (NOx) Tier III regulation;
- In further consideration of the prevention of air and marine pollution, the ship is equipped with various environmental technologies not mandated by international conventions, and is assigned ClassNK’s “Environmental Awareness (EA)” and “Advanced Environmental Awareness (a-EA)” notation, which is to be provided to the ships implementing special and advanced environmental measures.
The ship was given with “S” rating, the highest rank in the Program as “the ship with particularly high decarbonization, environmentally friendly performance and innovativeness”, recognizing that adequate environment-related investments have been made.
