Philly Shipyard, Inc. (PSI) announced that it has initiated construction of up to four new, cost-effective and environmentally friendly containerships with deliveries in 2020 and 2021. It also plans to promote formation of a new entrant into the container ship trade between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii to operate these vessels. Presently, this trade route is serviced by only two carriers and is reliant in part on a group of near end-of-life steamships.
The vessels are being designed to address the present market trends for larger sized containers, faster transit times and LNG fuel, the company informed.
“Philly Shipyard has a strong track-record of building quality vessels for this trade, and we believe local communities can benefit greatly from the safe and reliable service provided by our modern, efficient and ‘green’ ships”, remarked Steinar Nerbovik, Philly Shipyard’s President & CEO.
As PSI notes, when strict MARPOL/ECA emissions regulations take effect in 2020, several of the older steam powered vessels serving the Hawaii trade route today will be out of compliance without substantial, costly modifications. Even if these aging steamships are modified, they would be less reliable and carry significantly higher operating costs than modern vessels in areas such as fuel consumption and manning and maintenance requirements.
PSI believes these circumstances create a unique opportunity for a new Jones Act carrier to enter the Hawaii containership trade with a fleet of cost-efficient and eco-friendly container vessels built by PSI. Furthermore, unless these new ships enter the Hawaii trade route starting in 2020, local commerce may be adversely impacted by the new emissions standards.
For these reasons, PSI has begun construction of a new fleet of containerships, with planned delivery dates for the first pair in 2020 and the second pair in 2021.
These modern containerships will be the direct continuation of the series of two similar 3,600 TEU Aloha class containerships with expected deliveries in 2018 and 2019 that PSI is presently constructing for the Hawaii containership trade.
